HAPPINESS ON BOTH SIDES
by Demented Amanuensis
Summary: Written for the HGLM exchange on LJ. When a striking, platinum-haired lady avails herself of the services of Hermione Granger's curse breaking agency, little does Hermione suspect that her life is going to change most dramatically.
1. Chapter 1

PART I

Being one's own boss was brilliant.

Hermione Granger, still not quite used to her newfound status as inventor, founder, owner and boss of England's first curse breaking agency, rose from her chair and, feeling very much like a cat prowling its territory, wandered over to the window. She stopped on the other side of her desk and let her fingertips brush the polished surface of the sturdy, two-hundred-pound Victorian mahogany behemoth. The brass fittings gleamed. Sunlight bounced off them and onto the whitewashed wall, where it rested, lazy and a little blurred.

The desk had belonged to her grandmother; after her death Hermione had claimed it for herself, much to the relief of the movers, who had gladly believed her assurances that friends were going to help her get it out of the flat and down the narrow staircase. She'd returned later that night, when the streets were sleepy and deserted, and only a faint orange glow on the horizon betrayed that miles away there was a city that never slept. Gently and without making a noise, she had unlocked the door to the flat, as if the old woman that had died was still tucked away there in fitful, birdlike sleep.

She'd lingered for a while, motionless in the empty rooms, mourning her grandmother. Then she'd shrunk the desk, put it in her pocket and silently Disapparated.

Two days later she'd found the ideal space for her new business venue. Handing in her notice to the Ministry had felt like taking a deep, cleansing breath after surviving on stale air deprived of oxygen. Entering the empty office, unshrinking the desk and putting it on that very spot, where it felt _right_, had been like exhaling. A chapter had been closed, and a new one began.

Not only for Hermione Granger, though.

'You do like being the office cat, big boy, don't you?' Hermione addressed Crookshanks, who was having a nap, curled tight on a blanket on the windowsill.

While still working for the Ministry of Magic, she hadn't been able to take her familiar to work with her. Now, however, they travelled every day to the office together. His surly charm had already beguiled her two employees. Hermione strongly suspected that they were feeding him tasty bits when she was looking the other way. Crookshanks was definitely becoming portly in his old age. It suited him, though.

Now he raised his head and stared at her out of half-closed, yellow eyes. Then he blinked once and returned to sleep.

'Stating the obvious, I know.'

Hermione scratched him behind the ears and strolled over to the other window, where a dozen or so cacti, sitting in earthenware pots, were soaking up the sunlight. The air that came in through the half-open window was warm and mellow with just a hint of an early-autumn bite. It was the first of September, and Hermione thought that, right now, the Hogwarts Express was chugging out of King's Cross station, slowly gathering speed. So many years had passed since the first time she'd walked through a wall and onto the magical platform, and still she felt wistfulness tug at her heart. The memories had become a little hazy – unsurprising, after almost twenty years – but when she thought of that very first day she'd boarded the train, excitement welled up, as fresh as if she'd been a first-year only yesterday.

But, she reminded herself, she was not eleven anymore. In less than three weeks' time, she was going to turn thirty, and she had a business to run.

Her diary was open on the desk, and Hermione tapped the entry for 10.30 with her wand. To anybody but herself, Penny and Padma, it would only have shown the word "Appointment", followed by either an H or a P. When she pronounced a specially designed revealing spell, more text appeared next to it. It was a complex incantation she had devised together with Penny, her assistant, in order to keep information about the clients as confidential as possible.

Penny, aged twenty-four, used to work for the Ministry as well, in the same department as Hermione, and she'd been only too happy to be offered a job as her former supervisor had left the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad.

Apart from Penny, there was only one regular employee: Padma Patil, the twin sister of Hermione's roommate at Hogwarts, who'd been working for Gringotts as a curse breaker but had quit her job after a serious fallout with her employers. As she had told Hermione, being passed over twice for promotion was bad, but three times was just too much. The Goblins didn't much care for witches (the females of their own species were never to be seen in public), and even less for witches in superior positions.

The meagre salary the goblins had paid her hadn't left Padma with enough capital to become a partner right away, but the two witches had drawn up an agreement: a part of Padma's monthly payment was to be redirected into the company's account, so that she would automatically become a partner after five years of paying these instalments. She already shared most of the responsibilities with Hermione.

This morning's client, marked with "Appointment P" would actually have gone to Padma, but since her son Oliver (one of many children born on the cusp of spring 1999 as a result of a celebratory post-Voldemort shag) was among the first-years who'd just left for Hogwarts, she'd preferred to see him off at the station and asked Hermione to take the case.

There were few enough details in the diary to go by. Usually, Penny was brilliant at squeezing information from clients when they made their appointments by Floo, but obviously even her skills hadn't been equal to this one's reticence.

_Gives her name as Lucy M., in her late forties_, Penny had scribbled, _good-looking, visibly embarrassed. Refused to state her full name and nature of problem. Asked four times about client confidentiality. Threats of dire consequences in case of indiscretion. Money apparently doesn't matter (you ought to have seen the jewels!!!) Snobbish bitch._

It seemed that Padma was indeed lucky to have escaped this one.

ooOoo

When the woman flounced into Hermione's office, ten minutes late and with the air of an acclaimed diva stepping into the limelight, sure in her knowledge that behind the luminous barrier hundreds of hearts are beating only for her, Hermione silently upgraded her from "snobbish bitch" to "insufferably arrogant, condescending, stupid peahen".

Lucy M., whatever her real name, strongly reminded Hermione of Grace Kelly. Or at least, that was what her rational mind tried to tell her. The platinum blond hair, swept up in a deceptively simple twist, the slender body that would have looked elegant even if wrapped in rags, the pearl-grey robes that must have cost a fortune… Her eyes, though, weren't blue but grey. There was something familiar about those eyes and their haughtiness, something she couldn't quite place but was acutely aware of.

'Miss Granger, I presume?'

The woman had a surprisingly pleasant voice. A rich and rather nice contralto, as Hermione reluctantly admitted to herself. She would have expected a sound more in keeping with the peahen image, screechy and metallic. With a mental shrug, she composed herself and held out her hand. 'Hermione Granger, pleased to meet you, Ms…?'

Her client didn't answer the unspoken question. Instead she took Hermione's hand in a firm grip. The sensation of something almost, but not quite, breaking through a barrier and into her conscious mind returned, and with it the awareness that, again, her preconceived notions had been wrong. Women of Lucy M's ilk weren't supposed to shake one's hand in this manner. They had cool, dry fingers, limp and reluctant to be soiled by the contact with lesser humans.

'For now, Lucy will be sufficient,' the woman said and proceeded to sit down on the chair opposite Hermione's.

'As you wish.' Hermione forced her face into a smile. 'Have a seat, please.'

She'd meant it as a put-down, but all the woman did was smirk at her and cross her legs.

Hermione went round the desk to sit in her own chair, sneaking a glance at Crookshanks while her back was turned towards her visitor. He was fast asleep, his ribcage rising and falling slightly but steadily. If Crookshanks didn't sense any danger… But still, the odd sensation persisted. Something was poking and prodding at her mind, fleeting but insistent, something obvious and tantalisingly close to the surface.

Her attempts at identifying what was troubling her so had distracted Hermione, and she flinched when suddenly – and Merlin, had she been quick! – there was a wand in the woman's hand. Hermione's own wand was out in a flash, and while mentally berating herself for being so inattentive, she had already cast a strong shielding spell.

It wouldn't have been necessary, though, for Ms M. merely laid a series of strong wards on the floor, walls and windows, and then put some complicated-looking spells Hermione had never seen on the fireplace. Then she shoved the wand back into her left sleeve, allowing Hermione a glimpse of the Auror-issue holster concealed there, relaxed against the backrest of her chair and smiled at Hermione.

'Any chance of coffee?' she said.

ooOoo

While busy preparing the required double espresso for her client – and one for herself, because her nerves definitely needed something stronger than her usual cappuccino – Hermione tried feverishly to make sense of her own puzzled perceptions. The movements – the eyes – that smirk – the way she'd crossed her legs – the handshake – the no-nonsense wand holster – it had all been so… male?

Lucy? Luci-us?

She still hadn't managed to regain control of her expression when she slowly turned round to face her client.

'Ah,' drawled the woman in question. 'The knut seems to have dropped. It took you longer than I'd thought.'

'Mr… Malfoy?' Hermione felt as if a complicated knot in her mind had finally come undone. With elucidation came an irresistible urge to laugh. She turned back to the espresso machine, hoping that her shoulders weren't shaking too visibly.

'A modicum of professional restraint would be very much appreciated, Miss Granger.'

She bit her lip. 'Sorry. It was just…' She turned round, cups in hand, and had to fight another wave of hilarity. 'Are those your wife's, I beg your pardon, ex-wife's robes and jewels you're wearing?'

The snarl she got in return was pure Malfoy. How could it have taken her so long to recognize him, even in this female incarnation? Probably, she mused while handing him his cup of espresso and returning to her side of the desk, it was her own unwillingness to be alone in a room with Lucius Malfoy that had impeded her thought processes. But now she _was_ alone in a room with Lucius Malfoy, and he'd warded the office so that it was likely more impenetrable than a Gringotts vault. She would have to be on her guard.

'Do you know who did this to you?' Hermione asked. A very slight movement of her left wrist reassured her that her wand was just where it ought to be, ready to be drawn in a millisecond. It made her feel a little better.

Malfoy took a sip from his cup. 'No. If I did, rest assured that I wouldn't have needed your services. The perpetrator would have been only too glad to oblige me and reverse the curse. Whichever curse they used,' he added gruffly.

'How can you be so sure it was a curse? It might just as well have been a potion, or some magical artefact – something unobtrusive, like an enchanted coin, for example.'

'Do give me some credit, Miss Granger. You may be a clever witch, but you are not the only clever… person in the room. I have been on the receiving end of too many curses -'

'And on the giving end as well,' Hermione interrupted him sweetly.

He looked as if he'd bitten on a vomit-flavoured Bertie Botts Bean. 'Such a lack of tact, Miss Granger. The past is dead and buried, so kindly let it rest. I have paid for my crimes, literally as well as metaphorically.'

'Somebody seems to think you didn't pay enough, though,' Hermione replied, glancing pointedly at his breasts and noting with satisfaction that he half-raised his forearm as if to shield himself. 'When did this happen, anyway?'

'Yesterday, in the late afternoon, in Diagon Alley. I had just left Gringotts and was on my way to the Apparition point, when I felt it.'

'Hm.' Hermione picked up a quill and started making notes. 'And was the effect immediate?'

'No. I had been at home for maybe fifteen minutes, performing detection spells, when I felt my body change.'

'And I suppose the detection spells didn't yield any results?'

'They told me what I already knew, that somebody had hexed me. As to a way of recognizing or countering it, nothing.' Malfoy put his empty cup on the saucer and deposited both on the desk. He frowned at her. 'Do not nibble your quill, Miss Granger. It's disgusting.'

'You'll have to put up with it, I'm afraid. Just write it off as a filthy Mudblood habit, I'm sure that will help.' She'd made him wince again. It was a petty satisfaction, but she wasn't above enjoying it. Not where Lucius Malfoy was concerned. 'And now I'll have to try my own method of detecting curses. Please get up and stand over there.' She gestured at a spot next to the fireplace, where a quadrangle of greyish-dull titanium inscribed with magical signs had been inserted into the parquet floor.

'And what, pray, is this supposed to be?'

'A very useful device.' Wand drawn, Hermione crossed the room. 'The Japanese Unspeakables, or equivalent thereof, invented it a few years ago. Take your shoes and stockings off, please.'

A blond eyebrow shooting upwards was all the response she got. Hermione countered with a smirk of her own. 'Don't be shy. I'm sure your legs will pass muster.'

Malfoy growled deep in his throat, a sound very much at odds with his current appearance. The bracelets on his delicate wrist tingled when he pointed at the metal surface. 'I don't care whether it's Japanese or Paraguayan. What is it?'

Hermione's patience was wearing a bit thin, but a client was a client, and it was still early days, too early to turn anybody down. In a few years' time, she'd be able to choose her customers, but not now. And even with a solidly established reputation, throwing somebody as influential as Lucius Malfoy out of her office probably wouldn't be a good idea. So she'd better start digging her meagre diplomatic skills out from wherever she'd put them.

'It's a combined magical insulator and detector,' she said, as evenly as she could, 'and if you deign to look up, you will see the counterpart of this piece lodged in the ceiling. Now, if you step onto it, feet and head bared, and I activate it, two things will happen: firstly, only magic that belongs to you – whether your very own or a spell or curse currently anchored to your body – will be made visible to me as a kind of luminous trace or string.

'Secondly, different kinds of magic will visually manifest themselves in different colours, and they will be separated into individual strands, which in their turn will be drawn to different signs. Your own, innate magic, for example, will show as a shade of blue and go straight into your zodiacal sign. Curses are usually green. The shade depends on their intensity and malignity. By identifying which sign attracts the curse that was cast on you, I'll be able to determine its nature more accurately.'

'You call it a magical insulator and detector,' Malfoy said tonelessly. 'But that is not what it is. I have heard of this device, although I have never seen it before. Not that I ever wished to...'

Again, he had drawn his wand before Hermione had even been able to raise hers. The tip was resting lightly against her throat, as he snarled, 'How dare you! Did you really think you could fool me? Take my magic away and turn me into a squib?'

'Mr Malfoy…'

Now he was smiling, and not in a good way. 'Ten years in Azkaban, I daresay, and you'll be fit to be tried only if I don't exercise my right to legitimate defence…'

'It has been modified for use in curse-breaking. It won't strip you of your magic,' she ground out, hating herself for sounding so terrified.

There was a flicker of doubt in his eyes, but the tip of his wand didn't budge. 'Has it indeed? Would you care to prove it?'

Hermione closed her eyes. 'There's nothing I'd be less willing to do than allow you to analyze my magic, but if it makes you take your wand off my throat, yes, I will.' She glared at him when he deftly removed her own wand from her fingers. 'That was unnecessary.'

'I'll give it back to you when I'm done. You may keep it as a souvenir, to look at while you're stacking shelves at a Muggle supramarket.'

'It's called supermarket,' she said wearily. 'And I already told you the thing's been modified, for heaven's sake. It merely does what I already…' She fell silent; he didn't seem inclined to listen to reason, and his wand was still resting against the quickly pulsing artery in her throat.

He stepped backwards, away from her, and cocked his head.

Hermione rubbed the spot where his wand had poked her. 'You don't know how to activate it.'

'I'm a fast learner, Miss Granger. Now take off your shoes and stockings, if you please.'

ooOoo

Half an hour later, they were again seated on both sides of Hermione's desk, drinking espresso. Malfoy even had the good grace to look slightly sheepish.

'Well,' he said finally, 'have you come to any conclusions?'

'Apart from you being a paranoid bitch, you mean?'

'I'd prefer bastard, if you're sure you have to insult me.'

'Rather,' she muttered darkly, trying to force her mind not to dwell on how he'd looked at her legs when she'd removed her shoes and stockings. The creep. The perverted, unmitigated swine. She had to admit, though, that he could've hexed her to the Hebrides and back, defenceless as she had been. Cast Cruciatus on her, even killed her. Got away with it, too, probably, pleading legitimate defence. But he hadn't. Hermione grudgingly admitted it was a point in his favour.

Her mind had wandered again, and she jumped when he cleared his throat. 'Erm, yes. Well.' She took a calming breath. 'The curse – let's call it that, for the time being, although I'd rather tend towards calling it a charm with a malevolent twist – materialized as a flickering, yellow light. The colour is… unusual.' Malfoy opened his mouth, but she raised her hand to silence him. 'First, let me line up the facts. We'll have to interpret them, but later. At first, the curse seemed unsure which sign to choose. It wavered between the Greek aleph and the Egyptian Ankh, and finally settled on the Ankh.

'This isn't surprising per se, since the Ankh has long been believed to be a sign symbolizing both the male and female element. Closer examination of the strand of yellow light showed that it wasn't flickering, but composed of a multitude of smaller strands in constant movement. That tells us that he curse has been, well, cobbled together from very different elements and lacks stability. The time-release factor built into it might also be responsible for the apparent instability.'

Malfoy, who had been playing with the clasp of his pearl necklace, tilted his head. 'Permission to speak?'

'I suppose so, yes.'

He smiled faintly. 'Interesting and, dare I say, fascinating as your rendition of this in-depth analysis doubtlessly is, does it bring you any closer to a solution for my problem?'

Hermione bristled. Having her skills doubted or belittled – either because she was a woman or due to her Muggle ancestry – was something she thought she had got used to, but Malfoy's mocking tone and the prejudice it betrayed made her so angry that she needed every ounce of self-control to remain calm. 'No,' she said icily, 'that was just a bit of cheap hocus-pocus for the clients' sake. If you don't like my way of doing things, you may leave, Mr Malfoy. I'm sure the Aurors will be delighted to be of help.'

She'd expected him to go, but he remained in his chair. His anger was palpable, though. 'I have no intention of leaving. I need this problem to be solved, and fast.'

'Then I'm afraid you'll have to accept my methods.' She glanced at the clock on her desk. 'My next client is due in little under two hours, so we've got enough time for a few preliminary tests. I hope that the results will be sufficient for me to work with. If they aren't, you'll have to come back here tomorrow, and-'

Robes rustling and pearls softly clattering, Malfoy stood up. Hermione frowned at his back, surprised that he would leave now. But he merely walked over to the window where Crookshanks was still sleeping – and now she did of course notice that, while elegant, his gait was by no means feminine – and leaned against the sill, arms crossed.

'I… would appreciate it,' he said slowly, 'if you could temporarily leave any other clients you might have to Miss Patil. As I already mentioned, I do not wish to remain in this state much longer, and I assure you that you will be compensated most handsomely for your willingness to deal with my case exclusively.'

Hermione contemplated this. 'I'm afraid that won't be possible,' she finally said. 'We don't have that many clients yet, and-'

'Money, as I said, is not an issue.'

'Kindly let me finish. This isn't about money – you'll have to pay a fee according to our tariffs, but even if you offered to double or triple it, it couldn't make up for our letting down a client at this early stage. We need to build up a reputation, and if people begin to think we're unreliable, that won't help at all.'

'Miss Granger, either you are a superb actress, or you truly are an ingénue. If you rid me of this curse quickly and successfully, the right words spoken to a select few will ensure that you never lack clients, believe me.'

'I don't need a pimp, Malfoy!'

'Then you're more of a fool than I thought. Every business needs advertising. If you do a good job, I'll pay for it and recommend you. Or are you worrying that a recommendation coming from my good self might harm you?'

'N-no. I just don't want…' She fell silent.

'To be indebted to me?' he finished her sentence.

'Something like that, yes.'

He idly scratched Crookshanks behind the ears. 'Then consider whatever I can do to further your business to be a recompense for any damage I may have inflicted upon you in the past.'

Crookshanks rolled over and began to purr loudly as Malfoy rubbed his furry belly. When a minute had gone by and he still hadn't sunk his claws into Malfoy's fingers, Hermione's resolve began to crumble. Crookshanks was more reliable than a foe-glass when it came to detecting malicious intent. So Malfoy obviously didn't mean her any harm. And he was of course right: if he recommended the agency, such approval would carry a lot more weight than Mrs Goatwendle's enthusiastic praise of her abilities after she'd successfully removed a hex from the old lady's wardrobe so that it stopped chewing her robes.

She sighed. 'Very well, Mr Malfoy. I'm going to deal with you exclusively and leave the rest to Padma and our subcontractors.'

ooOoo

The classical beauty of his face marred by a moue of disgust, Malfoy dangled a phial from between thumb and index finger, holding the offending object as far away as his outstretched arm would allow. 'Do I really have to drink this?'

'Do you think I'd waste valuable Polyjuice Potion unless it was absolutely necessary?'

'Considering how awful it smells, I wouldn't put it past you.' He sniffed the liquid again. 'Is there no other way?'

Hermione, who had just lifted a Pensieve from a shelf, put the heavy object down on the table. 'I believe I already told you there isn't. I need to establish if the curse has affected your DNA, and doing it the Muggle way would take at least a week.'

His shoulders sagged. 'I suppose I have to believe you.'

'That's what I've been trying to tell you for the last five minutes.' And you've been a royal pain in the arse for the last two hours, she added silently, watching with a sardonic smile as he drank the concoction down in one go.

Nothing happened.

Malfoy glared at her. 'Well, that was a big success,' he said snidely.

'Patience, Mr Malfoy. The potion might take longer to become effective, for one, and if it doesn't have an effect, we can at least be sure that the curse has penetrated your body down to the cellular level.'

'And will be harder to counter,' Malfoy added morosely. 'Well, if that isn't…' He bent over and fell to his knees.

'Thirty-three seconds,' Hermione stated, unmoved, adding the number to her case notes. 'Are you feeling any ill effects apart from the usual cramps and muscle spasms?'

The hiss of ripping fabric made her look up from her writing. She had to dodge a small hailstorm of pearls set free when a bracelet yielded to tension. Again, the impulse to laugh was overwhelming, but she managed to rein herself in. Just in time, because the transformation was complete, and Malfoy scrambled to his feet.

As a woman he'd been a couple of inches taller than Hermione, but now he'd regained his own height; that and the dimensions of his shoulders, arms and chest had been rather detrimental to the fine silk of his robes. Hermione was reminded of a snake shedding its skin but chose not to put the thought into words. Not when he was hopping on one foot, face twisted in pain, while trying to get the remaining shoe off his other foot. He may not intend to harm her, but there was only so much humiliation a man could bear without losing his temper.

'Your DNA hasn't been affected then,' Hermione remarked. 'But the curse was still strong enough to delay the effect of Polyjuice potion for more than twenty seconds. And now,' she continued, ignoring Malfoy's attempts at pulling his robes down so they'd cover his knees, 'we wait until you transform back. In the meantime, I would like you to extract your memories of yesterday afternoon. Starting with your departure from the Manor and finishing with your return there. Somebody must've come within curse-casting distance, and maybe we can identify the culprit right away. That would certainly make things easier.'

Malfoy had obviously acknowledged that his efforts at tugging down his robes were futile. The hem had been just above his ankles in his female form, and not only was he taller now, but the sudden broadening of his chest had also bunched up the fabric under his arms, and it was hopelessly stuck there, so that he now seemed to wear some kind of A-line mini dress from the sixties. Extracting his wand from under the tatters of his sleeve, he conjured a dressing gown which he wrapped around himself with a theatrical flourish.

Hermione was rather disappointed to see that it covered all of his legs and most of his feet. Although certainly not a foot fetishist, she knew a pretty pair of feet when she saw one. Malfoy's feet were very pretty, as were his calves. And while not particularly choosy when it came to feet, Hermione had very strong views on calves: she found stick-thin as unattractive as bulgingly muscular (Ron!) and the complete absence of hair (Harry!) as unsightly as a bristling miniature shrub (Victor!).

Suddenly aware that she was ogling Lucius Malfoy's legs, Hermione pulled herself together, grateful that he was busy tying the sash of his dressing gown. She shooed him over to the Pensieve where he set about extracting strands of memories.

'I suggest that we have a look at them together,' she said when he was finished. 'Two pairs of eyes and all that, and besides I need to keep watching you – it's impossible to predict when you're going to change back, and I must have the exact time.'

He merely nodded and stood next to her, hands braced on the table and ready to dive into his own memories.

ooOoo

Before the end of the war, Hermione had never used a Pensieve. She'd heard Harry's accounts, of course, during their fourth and sixth year and after the final battle, and she'd read about the theory and history of this magical artefact.

Although Harry had assured her that memories looked like silvery fog, as they emerged from the head, and a bit like quicksilver once they'd solidified, Hermione had never been able to forget the almost-black, tar-like slush that had bled onto dirty floorboards from the temples of a dying Professor Snape.

She'd been horribly afraid that her own would look rather like Professor Snape's: dark, glutinous and repulsive.

After the Battle of Hogwarts, when the Aurors had asked her permission to extract some of her memories, which might prove useful for their inquiries, she'd refused and opted for Veritaserum instead.

A few months after their victory over Voldemort, when even her obsessive determination to keep going and her strength of will hadn't been enough to keep the nightmares and panic attacks at bay, she'd spent some time at St. Mungo's and finally consented to the healers temporarily removing her memories of the past year. This had allowed her some much-needed rest, both physical and mental. When the Healers had deemed her sufficiently recovered, they'd visited her memories together with her, bit by bit, always close to her, kind and understanding, until she was ready to have them reinserted into her mind, one by one.

Having her worst memories taken away from her, even for a short period of time, had been her salvation, but it had also made her understand the responsibility required of a wizard who dealt with memories. In the wake of this realization had come horrible, suffocating guilt: what had seemed like a necessary, if desperate, measure to save her parents now appeared like the most reckless, irresponsible action she'd ever committed. She cringed with helpless remorse, because not only had she been reckless, she'd also felt a secret pride at the time, because of her prowess with a wand – casting Obliviate was beyond the abilities of many a seasoned wizard.

Hermione's parents had been retrieved from Australia, and the memory spells had been successfully reversed. She'd told them everything, and forgiveness had been asked and granted. Once, when she and her mother had prepared a Sunday lunch, her mother had dropped a glass bowl; Hermione had whipped out her wand to repair it with a simple spell. There had been a spark of such fear in Mrs Granger's eyes, just for a moment… Hermione had seen it, and pretended she hadn't, and her mother had pretended it hadn't happened. It had been one of the worst moments of her life.

It had also been a determining factor in Hermione's choice of profession: the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad dealt out memory spells like cheap candy, and it had been Hermione's firm intention to make a difference. It was common knowledge that the AMaReS was composed mainly of wizards and witches who'd failed their entrance exams for both Law Enforcement and Aurory, and their Obliviates bore, as a rule, more similarity to sledgehammers than to the finely crafted scalpels they ought to have resembled.

She'd tried to make a difference, but all she had made were enemies. And in the end she'd given up and left. She still felt like a coward. It was preferable, though, to tearing herself to pieces in an ongoing struggle she could never win.

Aware that she'd got lost in her thoughts, Hermione glanced sideways at Malfoy. He was staring at the silvery liquid in the bowl, head bent and frowning. The surface danced and rippled, stirred by his breath.

'Ready to go?' she asked, picking up her quill and parchment, and slinging the strap of her magical camera over her shoulder.

He nodded, without looking at her. She counted to three, and they both touched their foreheads to the swirling pool of silver.

ooOoo

They were standing back to back, Malfoy watching the entrance of the Gringotts building, Hermione scanning the opposite side of Diagon Alley.

Whoever had cast the curse couldn't haven chosen a better time: the day before the students returned to Hogwarts, when everybody seemed to be doing some last-minute shopping. Only on Christmas Eve had Hermione seen more people crowding Diagon Alley.

From what she'd seen of the curse, Hermione was sure that no one but a fully trained wizard could have created and wielded it. The children, who made up at least half of the masses thronging the street, could therefore be discarded as suspects. That still left lots of people, though, some of whom she knew. Whenever she glimpsed a familiar face, she made a note on her parchment. Persons unknown to her were photographed.

'I've entered the building,' Malfoy said from behind her.

'Then I suggest you follow yourself, while I keep observing the street.'

'What if I transform?'

'Bugger.' Hermione stamped her foot. 'Well, never mind. Stay here with me, and we can still come back and have a look inside, if canvassing the crowds out here doesn't yield any result. Meanwhile, I'd appreciate it if you could give me a hand in identifying people – I can't watch properly while I'm taking photos.'

They worked assiduously for about ten minutes. Hermione's list was growing to impressive proportions, and she silently marvelled at the number of people Malfoy knew. He had to have an excellent memory, seeing as he was able to put names to so many faces within seconds. Hermione admitted to herself that she secretly envied him this ability.

'I'll leave you to it,' Malfoy said after a while. 'I didn't spend much time inside the bank and will probably be coming out shortly.'

She nodded, her eyes never leaving the horde of passers-by, and felt Malfoy return to his previous position, his back touching hers. Ridiculous though he'd been looking clad in the shreds of his wife's elegant robes, Hermione had been unable not to appreciate the body under the grey silk. She'd only seen the front side, but now that her shoulder blades encountered solid muscle, and she felt his buttocks brush her lower back, her treacherous mind quickly converted tactile input into visual imagination.

The result was such that she had to refrain herself consciously from rubbing against him.

Her physical reaction angered and distracted her, but not sufficiently to miss Ginny Potter, who was behaving in a very strange way indeed. Strange, that is, unless one was looking for the person who'd attacked Lucius Malfoy.

Hermione felt herself go rigid. If Ginny turned out to be the culprit, what was she to do? Talk of being caught between a rock and a hard place… This had to be the worst conflict of interests in the history of mankind. Mind working furiously, she watched as the red-haired witch opened the latest issue of Witch Weekly and, while pretending to be deeply engrossed in her reading, surreptitiously cast a series of carefully measured _Engorgio!_s on the potted rosebush next to her, until the plant was sufficiently large and bushy to provide cover. Then, still holding up the magazine, she stepped behind the shrub and kept her wand trained on the ornate entrance door of Gringotts Bank.

Unlike most people, Hermione had never underestimated Ginny. It hadn't taken her long to recognize how the youngest Weasley, instead of trying to escape the overwhelming shadow of her older brothers, had used that shadow as a camouflage for her own, not inconsiderable power. Hermione looked at her in awe, as she cursed Malfoy and Disapparated almost at the same time. A masterpiece, if ever she'd seen one.

ooOoo

'You seem preoccupied,' Malfoy said when they re-emerged from the Pensieve.

He'd whirled round as soon as he'd seen his memory self being hit with the curse, but she was absolutely certain he hadn't spotted Ginny. Inwardly thanking all the deities she could think of, and apologizing to those she couldn't, Hermione nodded. 'It's been an hour and twelve minutes, and you still haven't transformed.'

He merely raised an eyebrow, conjured a chair for himself and sat down.

'I think,' Hermione said, as briskly and businesslike as she could, 'that I ought to develop the photos now. I've run all the tests already, and we have to wait for your transformation anyway, so we might as well do something useful in the meantime.'

'What about analyzing the curse?' he asked, crossing his legs and thus revealing a perfectly chiselled foot and ankle.

Feeling doubly guilty, because she was betraying a client – never mind that it was Malfoy, it just went against her professional ethos – and drooling over his legs at the same time, Hermione told herself that she had to act normal. What was more normal, though, snapping at him because he was criticizing her methods or conceding that he was right? Damn it, she was starting to feel like the proverbial centipede trying to determine which leg it used first.

'Erm, right. Yes. Well, developing the pictures will only take me five minutes, and you can have a look at them while I do a bit of Arithmancy.' There, that had been brilliant. If she said so herself.

Malfoy shrugged and leaned back. 'As you wish.' He adjusted the lapel of his dressing gown. 'I'm feeling a bit peckish, now that I have recovered from the nauseating effect of that foul potion.'

'I brought some sandwiches for my lunch,' Hermione said, feeling horribly inadequate, as she always did in matters of hospitality and housekeeping, 'and Penny can make us some tea. If that's all right with you.'

'I am entirely at your mercy.' He half-bowed.

Hermione found herself staring at the thigh the motion had half-unveiled and swallowed. 'I'll just…' She was about to say "lick" but caught herself at the last moment. 'I'll tell Penny, then. Back in a sec.'

ooOoo

Unsurprisingly, Malfoy's perusal of the photos didn't lead to any tangible result. The wizarding world was a small community in which he had been living for more than fifty years. A few years ago he had been readmitted to Hogwarts' Board of Governors; that, and his variegated social contacts, enabled him to identify all but four people, none of whom he deemed capable of casting a curse of this complexity.

Hermione had expected a good deal of impatience and snide remarks. He'd merely complimented her on her sandwich-making skills, though, and seemed to be in a rather mellow mood. And he still hadn't changed back, three hours and four minutes after having taken the potion.

Regardless of Malfoy's quite uncharacteristically placid behaviour, Hermione was used to working alone and felt unable to concentrate in his presence. Besides she was altogether unsuccessful in attempting to convince herself that it was his presence, and not her failure to stop herself from glancing at his legs more often than she cared to admit, which had such a detrimental effect on her ability to focus.

'I think,' Hermione finally said, when another peek at his knees had resulted in a grave Arithmantic error, 'that it would be best if you went home now. For the time being, all I can do is analyze the curse – just a lot of Arithmantic equations, boring stuff, which I have to do on my own – and try to find a counter-curse. I think it's clear by now that the Polyjuice Potion remains effective for an unusually long time, and I'm pretty sure that it isn't going to wear off anytime soon. I don't have to tell you to stay put at the Manor, I guess. And I'll contact you tomorrow morning. Please make sure to check the time when you change back, and write it down.'

He didn't look particularly pleased, but returned to her office with her and stepped into the fireplace without further ado.

Alone and finally free to vent her emotions, Hermione blocked the Floo – that sneaky bastard was capable of coming back – and, after casting a strong Muffliato, allowed herself to emit a loud scream, jumping up and down and tearing at her hair. While this outburst left her looking like a sheep blown backwards through a hedge by a hurricane, it helped her get rid of the pent-up anger and frustration she'd felt building since she'd spotted Ginny in the Pensieve.

Crookshanks, rather used to his human's bouts of self-therapy, merely flicked his tail.

Slightly calmer, Hermione removed the silencing spell and sat down at her desk. She meant to pay Ginny a visit, but first she had to put some order to her thoughts.

Fact number one: Lucius Malfoy was a bastard. Nice legs, nice feet, pretty hair, but still a bastard.

Fact number two: Lucius Malfoy was a client. He was going to pay her a hefty sum of money for analyzing the curse and either finding a counter-curse or identifying the culprit and wringing the counter-curse out of him or her. Well, her, but Malfoy didn't know that yet (and hopefully never would).

Fact number three: Lucius Malfoy wasn't just any old bastard, he was a vengeful, dangerous bastard, and therefore highly unlikely to let the matter rest even after the curse had been reversed. It seemed doubtful that observations on his female version being rather the dashing belle would slake his thirst for retribution.

Fact number four: Ginny was her friend. Whatever her reasons for turning Lucius Malfoy into a woman, he must never learn that she was the culprit. The consequences were too dire even to imagine, especially since Harry wasn't going to stand by idly while Malfoy took his revenge on his wife.

Having established these facts, Hermione saw clearly that there was only one path for her to take: Visit Ginny and try to make her see the possibly disastrous outcome of her foolish actions, and hope that visions of Harry dead or in Azkaban would suffice to make her spill the information Hermione needed, which she could then present to Malfoy as the result of her own research. A result for which he'd pay her good money, but then it was the result that counted, not the way it was achieved. Make Ginny promise or, if necessary, swear that she was never going to do it again. If Ginny balked, she could always threaten to tell Harry.

Risk assessment, then. What could possibly go wrong?

There might be no counter-curse. Since Hermione was pretty sure, though, that by putting pressure on Ginny she was going to obtain the formula for the curse, she was confident that, sooner or later, she'd find a possibility to counter it. In the meantime, Malfoy would have to experience the joys of womanhood. In case of pressing business engagements Polyjuice was always an option.

Malfoy might use Legilimency on her. In which case she was dead. Or he might find out about Ginny some other way, in which case she was equally dead. Harry had taught her a bit of Occlumency, so she might have a slim chance of blocking an attempt at invading her mind. There was no way she could stop Malfoy from investigating on his own, though, or prevent the inevitable consequences, should he be successful.

Hermione buried her head in her hands. This wasn't the kind of situation she liked to deal with. When she planned, she did so thoroughly, considering every tiniest potential risk and providing solutions for every problem that might possibly arise.

But this… This was a mess. A complete muddle, riddled with uncertainties and what-if's. She hated it.

So it was probably preferable to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Her professional qualms she'd have to deal with later, if ever. True, she was going to lie to a client. Considering, though, that this lie would benefit everybody involved and, more importantly, keep them out of Azkaban, it wasn't likely to bother her overly much. At least she hoped it wasn't.

With a weary sigh, Hermione got up to tell Penny that she'd be back in two or three hours and returned to her office. The tin of Floo powder seemed to be grinning at her in an insufferably mocking fashion, and of course she singed the hem of her sleeve when she threw some powder into the flames.

It was just one of those days.


	2. Chapter 2

PART II

It seemed only logical, therefore, that Harry should be at home. Hermione hadn't even considered that he might be, but there he was, sprawled on the couch in the sitting room, reading a Quidditch magazine and stuffing his face with crisps. Salt and vinegar, a flavour Hermione hated. One of those days, indeed. Fate obviously didn't want her even to pinch a handful of crisps.

A grin spreading over his face, Harry put down his magazine. 'Hermione! How nice to-'

Then he realized that this was not a time of day when his friend normally paid social calls. 'Are you all right? You look a bit…' Eight years of marriage had definitely taught him a thing or two about women. '… out of sorts,' he finished.

'I'm fine,' Hermione chirped, excruciatingly aware that she wasn't usually a chirper. All this acting-like-normal was beginning to tear at her nerves. 'I'm just… I needed to talk to Ginny. Is she at home?'

'She's upstairs, resting.' He sighed. 'Why do people always go on about pregnancy being such a wonderful thing? During the first three months she was puking all the time, and now she's always tired. Not that I'm complaining,' he added hastily, seeing Hermione's brow darken. 'It's just that it seems a bit unfair, you know. Still five months to go, and she's already exhausted, poor thing.'

Hermione bit her lip. She really didn't want to disturb Ginny's well-deserved rest, but she had to talk to her. Well, then. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and Harry had always been so easy to manipulate. She hunched her shoulders and sighed deeply. 'That's… that's quite all right. I'll talk to her' – deep breath, exhale shakily – 'another time.'

'Hermione, are you sure you're all right?'

Despondent shrug. 'Yes. Yes, I'm okay. It wasn't… not really important or anything.'

Harry got up and joined her where she stood. 'You're a crap actress, Hermione.' He put an arm around her shoulders. 'You come here on a weekday in the early afternoon, and you honestly expect me to believe that it isn't important? Go upstairs and talk to Ginny, I know she won't mind.'

'Are you really sure?'

'Yes, really. Now go!' He gave her a gentle shove towards the stairs.

Now Hermione was feeling truly awful. She hated all forms of lying, and pulling Harry's strings like this was even worse. On a scale of one to ten, it probably didn't even qualify as one, and nobody was being harmed – on the contrary, she was doing this as much for Harry and Ginny as for her own sake. But still. Harry of all people didn't deserve to be manipulated in such a way; he'd had enough of that to last him a few lifetimes. She hugged him impulsively and kissed the tip of his nose.

'What was that for?'

'Nothing in particular. For being Harry.'

He blushed and beamed, and Hermione felt slightly better.

ooOoo

Seven years ago, Hermione wouldn't have felt nearly so sanguine about confronting Ginny. When she'd broken up with Ron, relations between the two young women had become strained to the extreme.

Explaining to Ginny that she could deal with many things, but not with infidelity, had been of little use. Like Molly Weasley, Ginny had been firmly convinced that it was all Hermione's fault. Aspersions had been liberally cast on Hermione's work ethics, her ability to maintain a relationship, even on her skills in bed. While perfectly aware that Ron, although unable to keep his cock in his trousers, was not the only one to blame for the end of their relationship, Hermione had categorically refused to be the only culprit.

She and Ginny hadn't talked to each other for well over a year, until the day Ginny burst through the Floo in Hermione's flat at three in the morning, sobbing and incoherent with anger. A few pints after work had led to a kiss and a bit of drunken groping between Harry and a fellow Auror. In the end, there had been a rather flamboyant reconciliation, but before that happened, Ginny had spent two weeks at Hermione's place.

It had been a healing experience for both: Hermione, who didn't have too many friends, was glad to mend the rift. Ginny understood that trying, against her own wishes and nature, to be what – in her opinion – Harry thought was the perfect wife might have been a mistake.

After their reconciliation, she and Harry had agreed to put a little distance between them; instead of trying to persuade Harry that they must have children right there and then, she'd moved out of Grimmauld Place and started an apprenticeship at St. Mungo's. When she'd finished it, and Harry had completed his Auror training, the two had moved to Godric's Hollow, and Ginny had been working as a Healer until both she and her husband felt that the time had come to have a baby.

Considering both Ginny's impeccable professional reputation and her pregnancy, her reasons for cursing Lucius Malfoy of all people were even more of a mystery to Hermione. A pregnancy certainly explained a good many strange things, but so much could have gone wrong – what on earth had her friend been thinking?

ooOoo

Ginny wasn't asleep but reading. Trained to see through cloaking spells, Hermione recognized the book as a trashy romance novel but didn't comment. She needed her friend to cooperate, and unveiling a guilty pleasure wasn't going to achieve anything in the way of collaboration.

After a brief hug and a kiss, Hermione sat down on the edge of the bed. 'We need to talk,' she said. Due to Ginny's often surprising sneakiness, this situation required a direct approach, she felt. 'I know that you cursed Lucius Malfoy. If you don't want to tell me why, that's fine, but I need to know how. If there's a counter-curse, I want that, too.'

She'd been prepared for having to overcome Ginny's proverbial stubbornness and a good deal of resistance. What she had most definitely not expected was smugness.

'So it worked, did it?' Ginny said. Her expression reminded Hermione of the twins. Nowadays, George didn't smile or grin much anymore, but she still remembered his and Fred's antics at Hogwarts.

'Yes, it worked, but…' Hermione had learned the hard way that, where you sowed self-righteousness, you reaped a meagre crop consisting mainly of bitterness, and so she changed tack at the last second. 'It was a very impressive bit of spell-work. But Malfoy sought my help, so he's now my client, and it's my duty to do what I can to counter the, well, curse. I hope you understand the difficulty of my position.'

Playing with the end of her thick, red braid, Ginny gave her a mischievous smile. 'I merely wanted to help.' She loosened her grip on the coil of hair, and it sprang free.

'Help?' Hermione wasn't quite sure she'd heard correctly. 'Did you just say help? Help whom?'

The smile spread until it became a broad grin. 'You, of course. Last Saturday, when we were having dinner, you mentioned that you didn't have too many clients. Trickling in, you said. And that's how it's been for the last three months, if I remember correctly.'

'You do remember – but Ginny! I won't say anything about it being highly unethical, but it was terribly risky! What if Malfoy had turned on you?'

'Harry would've stunned him,' Ginny replied with a shrug.

'Harry? But Harry wasn't there!'

'Of course he was. He was standing right next to me, under his Invisibility Cloak.'

Hermione goggled. 'Right next to you? Harry was in on this… this completely demented project?'

'Well, obviously.'

'There's nothing obvious about – why didn't he say something? He must've known why I came here! He didn't say a word! Honestly, that's…' Realizing that calling Harry two-faced when she'd just been leading him on might be a tad hypocritical, she stopped in mid-rant and merely glared at her friend.

Ginny patted her hand. 'It was mainly my idea, so I guess he meant to leave the explaining to me. I'd been planning it for a couple of weeks, as your birthday present. But then I thought that the day before school started would be so much better – you saw Malfoy's memories, so you know how crowded Diagon Alley was. We were lucky, of course, because Malfoy actually did go out to Diagon Alley, but even the best plan needs a bit of luck, don't you think?'

Mind reeling, Hermione considered this. 'Your luck might run out, mind you,' she said slowly, 'in case Malfoy decides to have another look at his memories. I had to give them back to him – what if he has a Pensieve and… Good heavens, Ginny, he's bound to identify you, and what are you going to do then? Didn't you think of the consequences, the pair of you?'

Plait flying, Ginny shook her head. 'No way. I was Disillusioned.'

'No, you were not! I could see you, as plainly as I can see you now!'

The grin took on Cheshire Cat dimensions. 'Auror trick, Miss clever clogs.'

Her worries momentarily forgotten in favour of this new puzzle, Hermione nibbled her thumbnail. 'Trick? What kind of trick?'

'The problem with Disillusioning oneself,' Ginny said, while rubbing her still-flat belly, 'is that even people you want to be seen by can't see you. So the Unspeakables came up with a variation of the spell. You can key it to those you want to be visible to. Pretty clever, isn't it? And it saves a lot of trouble when Aurors are working in a group and have to make themselves invisible.'

'Does that mean you keyed it to me?'

'Well yes, obviously, and to Harry as well. We both know the procedure you follow, so it seemed pretty much a given that you'd use the Pensieve at some point. But of course we wanted _you_ to see me when you looked at Malfoy's memories, and certainly not _him_.'

'Why bother with enlarging that rosebush, then, if you were invisible?'

'Oh, come on, Hermione! Nothing attracts attention more than people bumping into empty space – we had to make sure nobody could run into us.'

Well, that did make sense. Hermione was still busy digesting the news, but her curiosity was stronger. 'And why on earth did you choose Malfoy as your target?'

'Because,' Ginny said, 'he was perfect in so many ways. First of all, he deserved a bit of a fright, don't you think?'

Feeling her mouth twitch uncontrollably at the recollection of "Lucy M.", Hermione gave in to the impulse. 'Well, yes,' she admitted and promptly succumbed to a fit of the giggles.

'Considering,' Ginny continued, 'that he's been behaving himself since the end of the war, we didn't want to hit him with anything painful or disfiguring. Well, Harry didn't,' she added after a pause. 'I might have gone a little further than just turning him into a woman. But Harry argued that we didn't want him to be too angry, for your sake.

'Secondly, we had to be sure to choose someone who wouldn't run to the Aurors. Again, Malfoy was the perfect target – he wouldn't have gone to the Aurors, even if we'd hit him with something less humiliating. How did he look, by the way?'

'Like Grace Kelly, but that won't mean anything to you.'

'The one who was in Rear Window?'

Since this was obviously meant to be an afternoon of surprises, Hermione didn't even try to hide her astonishment.

Ginny laughed. 'Harry has somehow got it into his head that watching detective movies and reading detective stories will hone his Auror skills.'

'Oh, I see.' She didn't really, but couldn't think of anything else to say.

'I didn't mean for him to look that pretty,' Ginny said pensively. 'But obviously the Malfoy prettiness gene is rather dominant. Anyway, we thought that he'd rather remain a woman than consult the Aurors. So we were as good as sure he'd turn up on your doorstep. Which he did.'

'Erm, yes.'

'Indeed. Our main concern was for your clientele to increase, of course. So we couldn't just pick any Tom, Dick or Harry. It had to be someone influential, who knows lots of people. And even though I'm convinced he won't go into the sordid details, Malfoy will certainly be grateful enough to mention your name. If he doesn't' – now Ginny's smile became a bit shark-like – 'I bet you won't have any problems convincing him that propaganda is to be part of your payment.'

Hermione sighed and shook her head. 'If that isn't the sneakiest, most underhanded ploy ever cooked up by two Gryffindors…'

'The Sorting Hat offered us both a place in Slytherin.'

'What? You too?'

'Uh-huh. It was merely because of Harry that I refused.' Ginny picked up her wand from the bedside table and summoned a substantial stack of parchments. 'You're going to need these,' she said, handing them to Hermione. 'They're my research notes.'

Hermione felt her face go slack. 'Does that mean you haven't developed a counter-curse?'

'Much easier than that,' Ginny said smugly. 'He merely has to take Polyjuice Potion to which you add one of his hairs. But you'll have to make him believe that you found it out all by yourself, won't you? So you need the notes to be convincing.'

'Poly…' All those surprises were getting a bit much for Hermione's nerves. 'But I already made him take it as part of the routine testing!'

'I supposed you would. Did it work?'

'Yes, it did, but-'

'Well, look at it this way.' Ginny pressed the wad of parchment into her hand. 'It'll give you time to work on something really convincing you can present to Malfoy, and in the meantime…' An unholy spark lit her eyes. 'He'll believe that he might turn into a woman any second. That ought to bring him down a peg or two, which is a good thing for men in general and Malfoy in particular. And you can keep him on tenterhooks for as long as you want.'

'That's highly unethical, Ginny. I'd never…' Hermione bit her lip. 'Well, maybe a day or two. To, erm, make it look realistic.'

They both cackled like the witches they were.

ooOoo

During her stay at St. Mungo's, a few months after the Battle of Hogwarts, the memory Hermione had had to revisit most often was that of being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange.

Memories only had sound and colour. Solid though they looked, people and objects couldn't be touched. The hand went right through them, as if they were ghosts, only without the accompanying sensation of chilliness. There was no smell – Hermione had always considered this a very strange phenomenon, given the ability of smells to trigger memories – and even if there was rain or snow in a memory, it left neither trace nor sensation.

Visiting a memory in a Pensieve was rather like being invisible on a stage or in a movie.

Watching herself over and over, as she was twisting and trembling under the Cruciatus curse, had been necessary for her to come to terms with the experience. She'd dived into that memory maybe a hundred times, until she was able to accept that the limp body pressed against the Lestrange woman was hers, that it was her face that stared at her in nameless fear when Bellatrix' knife spelled death on her skin in red signs.

At the beginning of her therapy she'd thought that Ron deserting them was going to be the most difficult memory she'd have to deal with. Of all the events of the previous year, it was the one that troubled her most insistently. Then, however, she'd understood that the disappointment, grief and loss were something her mind was able to deal with. After all, those feelings were still an approximation of 'normal' life, whereas the blind, primal terror, the desperation and constant peril of their endless flight had been too much for her psyche. It had erected a giant wall around that mental minefield and channelled all her strength into holding it up.

With time, she'd realized that loss of control was her greatest fear and understood why she'd had to view the memory of Ron walking out into the night only twice before it could be reincorporated into her mind.

The procedure of extracting a memory and immersing herself into it was by now well known to her. She still had to do it sometimes, when the nightmares would come. Taking out the Pensieve, performing the spell, concentrating on the wand movements – it was all part of a ritual now, and strangely soothing.

Three days had passed since her conversation with Ginny, and Hermione had given the final polish to her presentation for Lucius Malfoy. She'd talked to him five times on the Floo, and although he'd seemed increasingly tetchy, he'd obviously also been aware that a counter-curse couldn't be found in one day.

She'd have to go to Malfoy Manor the next morning.

With a gentle pat, she removed Crookshanks from her lap and got up to stretch her back. Too much time spent sitting behind a desk, she thought and grimaced when her muscles protested. It was late, too late to do any serious exercise. That would have to wait until tomorrow, as it always did. Small wonder that she was putting on weight. Slowly and almost imperceptibly, but it was there.

Still, this wasn't a time for worrying about the girth of her hips. She had more important things to do now, and afterwards she had to go home and get some sleep. In order to deal with Malfoy, she preferred to be well-rested.

Yawning, Hermione left her office and went to retrieve the Pensieve. It was reassuringly heavy, its form reflected in the polish of her desk. A nonverbal incantation, and a silvery wisp of memory curled out of her temple and down into the shallow basin, and settled there, a small pool of shimmering liquid.

The well-known sensation of panic rose up from her stomach when she bent forward; it increased as her forehead hovered closer and closer to the surface. But, Hermione reminded herself, exposing herself to the memory was her own choice. Hers, and hers alone. She was in control, and in order to maintain it, she had to force herself to look at it. Take in the iron gate, the gravel path, the door and entrance hall, the corridor. In less than twelve hours she was going to walk through that same gate, along that same path. Through the door, the entrance hall and the corridor. Maybe even into the same room. The house might still be the same, but she wasn't. It was important to make sure she'd understood that.

Be prepared, she thought, and made herself relax, as her skin felt the insubstantial touch of liquid memory.

ooOoo

It wasn't nearly as bad as she'd feared.

Maybe it was the bright daylight, or perhaps time (and therapy) really did heal wounds. Surely her love of all things beautiful helped, too.

Because Malfoy Manor was beautiful, there was no denying it. Built of red brick and essentially Tudor, it had obviously been extended later – probably in the early 1800's, Hermione guessed – but lovingly and carefully, a faithful continuation of the original style. And there had been some more recent changes as well: the high hedges lining the path that led towards the house were gone, as were the peacocks.

Hermione stood still for a few minutes and allowed herself to take in the scenery. Such peace… green lawns, interspersed with trees, and a cloudless, blue sky framing the reddish-brown structure with its chimneys, turrets and gables. The windows, like dead eyes in her memory, now seemed to wink at her. And silence, gentle and beguiling, pierced only by birdsong and the occasional whisper, when leaves were being moved by a slight breeze. It seemed inconceivable that Voldemort should have dwelled here. The worst that could happen in a place like this was falling off one's horse or getting lost in the maze of corridors and different levels.

Maybe, she thought, continuing her walk towards the entrance, the house had somehow purged itself of all that evil. The Malfoys were an old, powerfully magical family; surely magic was embedded in the very foundations of their ancestral home. Maybe it wasn't all dark. True, Dark Magic had its very own beauty, but this wasn't it.

When Hermione finally reached the entrance door, she was slightly out of breath and rather thirsty. Much to her surprise, it wasn't a house elf that came to answer her knock, but Malfoy himself. She reminded herself that she didn't have to feign incredulity at his unchanged appearance anymore, and so she merely shook his hand and followed him into the house.

It was cool inside, and very silent. Hermione breathed in deeply, both to calm herself and to take in the atmosphere. It made her think of churches, and of the library at Hogwarts. A lingering trace of coffee lessened this somewhat impersonal first impression and gave it a more intimate note. She inhaled again. The house smelled of old wood and books and beeswax. She felt it welcoming her; it was something she could cope with, even like. Although not yet able to let go completely of her anxiety, Hermione felt much more at her ease than she would have expected.

They went along the corridor she knew, past the door she had been dreading, and round a corner, leaving the aroma of coffee behind them. There was only one door at the end of the passageway, three feet deep and so low that Malfoy had to duck his head slightly when he held it open for her and followed her into the room.

Hermione had expected many things, but certainly not chaos. Disorderly rooms were something she associated with boys' dormitories, or Ron's bachelor pad, which she sometimes visited together with Harry. She had to admit, though, that this was a different kind of disarray, mostly because of the absence of smelly underwear, socks that seemed only seconds away from conscious life, and mouldy takeaway containers liberally strewn across a floor the existence of which was a matter of conjecture rather than actual visibility.

She'd never thought she'd see the day when Lucius Malfoy would look embarrassed. He did, though, and more than a little.

'This is my study,' he said, 'My personal sanctum. But maybe we ought to adjourn…'

'I like it,' Hermione interrupted him. 'I wasn't aware you had an interest in Ancient Runes.'

'After Voldemort was gone, I had to find another favourite pastime, since torturing and killing had gone out of fashion,' was the acerbic reply.

'I never really thought you did that for fun, Mr Malfoy. But you have to admit that being a Death Eater somewhat, well, eclipsed any other qualities you might possess.'

He snorted. 'I am not entirely sure that an interest in Ancient Runes counts as quality.' A couple of spells later, the two chairs in front of the fireplace had been cleared of parchments, and a quill transfigured into a low table. 'May I offer you something to drink?'

'Yes, please. I'm parched.'

She had yet to see a house elf. Malfoy may be reformed in many ways – personally, she believed that it was, well, not exactly a show, but mostly the acceptance of having put his money on the wrong horse – but certainly he hadn't renounced his servants. He took a small silver bell from the overflowing desk and rang. The sound was followed neither by a crack nor by the appearance of a small creature with bulging eyes.

Hermione braced herself for having to witness some serious elf-kicking. She mentally prepared a speech that, while leaving Malfoy in no doubt about her opinions, wouldn't make him so angry as to throw her out. When a disembodied but clearly elfish voice inquired after the Master's wishes, she therefore almost jumped out of her skin.

Malfoy ordered iced lemonade, which appeared on the newly-transfigured table only seconds later.

'Is something the matter, Miss Granger?' he asked.

The smile crinkling the corners of his eyes was practically mischievous, and Hermione resented that. It reminded her that she was far from feeling comfortable and certainly not in control.

'What have you done to your elves?' she asked. Her voice sounded rather squeaky, and she cleared her throat.

He shrugged and filled both their glasses. 'The newest demands of the Elfish Union. It seems that the conservative majority still resent being paid and wearing proper liveries, and therefore they demanded to be Disillusioned by their owners. The, er, shame of wearing clothes and receiving a salary seems to be more bearable that way. They also required their employers to put a special charm on them to silence their Apparating. It makes them feel less conspicuous, or some such nonsense.'

Unsure whether to laugh or bang her head against the table, Hermione decided that drinking some lemonade was probably wiser. 'Isn't that a little… impractical?' she finally asked. 'I mean, the silencing charm is certainly a good thing, but invisibility?'

'It certainly causes havoc in the kitchen.'

Hermione pondered this, and briefly toyed with the idea of telling him about the Aurors' partial disillusionment spell, but decided against it. He might ask how she knew about it, and one thing might lead to another…No, it was better not to touch the subject at all. Besides, if that was how the house elves coped with their new freedom, they really didn't deserve any better.

Her thoughts didn't remain on the subject of house elves for long. The stacks of books littering the room held far more attraction. 'What _are_ you working on?' she asked.

Malfoy didn't comment on the non sequitur, and she reluctantly marked that down as another point in his favour. Her friends always teased her about her rather erratic way of jumping from topic to topic.

'The work of a lifetime, I'm afraid. If I ever finish it, the wizarding world will possess a complete edition of ancient runic texts. I intend to group them thematically, instead of chronologically, which hasn't been done yet. Besides, many of the translations are incorrect or downright erroneous. I mean to rectify that as well.'

'But…' Hermione stared at him in awe. Yes, he'd been a Death Eater, but the man was a scholar! She didn't know many scholars, except maybe some of her former professors at Hogwarts, and most of them were so exhausted by the daily treadmill of teaching that they scarcely ever did any research or publishing. But this! This was a man who had absolutely nothing else to do and was free to spend his time reediting and reorganizing the _Corpus Runicum_!

Aware that she'd been staring at her host for a good thirty seconds, Hermione pulled herself together. Sort of, because it was impossible to hide her enthusiasm completely. 'That's brilliant!' she said. 'I took Ancient Runes at Hogwarts up to N.E.W.T. level, and of course I have to deal with them on a daily basis as a curse breaker – you have no idea how absolutely frustrating it is, having to toil my way through twenty or thirty tomes, in order to find two references to the same spell but from two different periods. And the translations – you're right, there are many errors, some of them minor, only there is no such thing as a minor error, not if you're a curse breaker. You must finish this! I assure you, it'll be a godsend, not just for curse breakers, but…'

At this point, she had to pause because she was out of breath. She took a few hasty gulps of lemonade and looked at Malfoy, intending to continue her praise of his opus magnum.

The liquid almost went down the wrong pipe. Malfoy was gazing at her in a very strange way: it wasn't threatening or contemptuous or, in fact, the kind of look that betrayed any negative emotion. Had it not been Malfoy, she would've identified his expression as one of interest tinged with fondness.

Puzzled and at a complete loss what to say or do now, Hermione tried to mask her disorientation by emptying her glass and refilling it. She drank half of the contents for good measure – surely he must have stopped staring at her by now?

She carefully raised her eyes.

Malfoy wasn't looking at her anymore. He didn't seem to be glancing at anything in particular – his eyes were slightly unfocussed, and his face bore a look of intense concentration.

Suddenly he snapped out of it and returned his attention to Hermione. 'Miss Granger, I admit to finding myself at a kind of impasse.'

She frowned. 'Concerning your work?'

'Mostly concerning you, to tell the truth.'

Hermione felt her face go hot and her hackles bristle. The swine. The bastard. The disgusting, bigoted, racist pig! First he lured her with tales of runes, and then he remembered that she was Muggleborn, and… She put down her glass, afraid the pressure of her hand might become too much for the fragile thing.

'Maybe we ought to conclude our business, Mr Malfoy,' she said coldly, 'so that I may leave you to your… studies.'

Evidently nonplussed, Malfoy leaned forward and scrutinized her. 'Miss Granger, I don't quite understand…'

'It is rather obvious that any other but professional interaction with me isn't to your liking. So I suggest we put the niceties aside and get down to business.'

He shook his head. 'That was not-' His face and posture suddenly rigid, he straightened up. 'I see. May I say, Miss Granger, that it would have been more in keeping with your house affiliation just to tell me, plainly and unequivocally, that you do not wish to socialize with a former Death Eater.'

Now it was Hermione's turn to stare. 'I never… That's not at all what I was saying! It was you! You, telling me you had a problem with me! What else was I to assume but…'

'But that I'd suddenly remembered your parents are Muggles? I may be twice your age, Miss Granger, but I assure you I'm not senile. I'm well aware that you are Muggleborn, and believe me, I have not forgotten what you went through in this very house!'

She swallowed convulsively. 'Fond memories, eh?' It ought to have been dripping with sarcasm, but sounded merely bitter.

The widening of his pupils and a muscle twitching in his jaw were enough to make her realize that she might have gone too far.

'I suppose,' he said, almost in a whisper, 'that you have the results of your research with you in writing. Would you be so kind as to hand them over.' He drew his wand and summoned a piece of parchment from his desk. 'Here is your payment order. I trust the sum will be sufficient. Do not let me detain you any further.'

ooOoo

The receptionist at St. Mungo's mustered the woman clutching the edge of her desk with more than a little trepidation. 'Madam, unless you have private insurance, you cannot choose your Healer, I already told you that. Please state your name, date of birth, wand registration number and the nature of your injury, so I can fill out this form in the appropriate manner, and I assure you that a competent Healer will be dealing with you within the hour.'

'I repeat that I am. Not. _Injured_!' Hermione ground out between clenched teeth. 'I have to see Healer Potter right now, but I am Not! Fucking! Injured! Can you get that through your thick skull, you absolute dunderhead?'

'Expletives and personal abuse will get you nowhere, Madam,' the receptionist replied. Her pinched expression and the way she was twirling her quill between white-knuckled fingers made it evident that she was clinging to the last shreds of her patience. 'Either you accept the rules, or I will have to call for security.'

'You can stick your rules up any orifice you deem appropriate. I need to see Ginny Potter. NOW!'

Had Hermione not been so enraged and full of adrenaline and humiliation, she would've noticed that the receptionist wasn't looking at her anymore, but at something – or rather somebody – behind her.

As things were, all she noticed was somebody saying 'Stupefy!', and then there was blackness.

ooOoo

Somebody was groaning in a most alarming way. Hermione wished they'd stop, because she wanted to concentrate on her headache.

She also wished she could summon the strength to open her eyes, although she wasn't quite sure it was a good idea. The pain pulsing against her forehead and temples was bad enough as it was; light, even a minimal amount of it, might make her head explode.

Hermione had just decided to give the groaner a piece of her mind, when she heard footsteps approaching. Something beatifically cool and moist touched her forehead, and she felt the rim of a glass against her lips. The moaning, too, had stopped, and so she was able to hear a female voice say, 'Drink this, and you'll be feeling better.'

They didn't need to tell her twice. Realizing that not only was she in pain, but also thirsty, and her lips dry and chapped, she greedily swallowed the liquid. It tasted of mint and lime, with a faint note of hibiscus.

A trickle of the potion – she'd recognized the flavour of a powerful anti-headache draught – had escaped her lips, and she lifted her hand to wipe it off her cheek. Or rather, she tried to lift her hand, only to feel something soft but firm encircling her wrist. The headache was receding, but her eyelids still wouldn't budge. Panic set in, and she started to tear at the restraints, aware that they wouldn't loosen but too full of blind terror to stop.

'Oh, dear!' said the voice that had previously told her to drink the potion. 'Ginny, I think you'd better come in and try to calm her down.'

'That's what I've been telling you!'

Suddenly she wasn't in the dark anymore – her eyes had been open all the time, Hermione realized, but they'd obviously blindfolded her as a measure against the headache – and hovering above her was Ginny's face, frowning and smiling.

'One of those days, eh?' Ginny said and then, addressing the other person in the room over her shoulder, 'You can leave her to me, Lydia.'

After removing the restraints and summoning a glass of water for her friend, Ginny sat down on the edge of the bed and took Hermione's hand. 'What on earth happened?'

Hermione drank the water down in three gulps. 'More, please!' she said.

After her third glass, she felt able to talk and think.

'I just wanted to see you,' she told Ginny. 'Only things seem to have got out of hand.'

'You can say that again. According to Gwenda, that's the receptionist, you stormed into the lobby like some demon from hell and consequently threatened her, so she had to call security. They stunned you, in case you had any doubts.'

Hermione gingerly touched her forehead. With the removal of the blindfold and the return of rational thought, she'd become aware that she was the only patient currently residing in the room, and that the groans had been her own. Small wonder – St. Mungo's security staff consisted solely of retired Aurors and Law Enforcement officers, who were well-paid and well-trained. There'd been a lot of motivation behind that stunner.

'I'd gathered as much. Ginny,' she said, sitting up with her friend's assistance, 'I've made a complete ass of myself, haven't I?'

'Maybe not complete, but enough of an ass to provide the whole staff with gossip for the next few months.' Ginny grinned. 'Why didn't you tell Gwenda that you're Hermione Granger? She'd have been happy to assist you in every possible way.'

Hermione sniffed. 'I don't like bandying my name around. Besides,' she added gruffly, because Ginny's eyes had begun to sparkle with mirth, 'if I was that much of a celebrity, she would've recognized me.'

'I'm afraid Gwenda isn't very good with faces. I remember her telling off Harry three years ago, when he came to see Ron after his Quidditch accident. And she has a tendency to exaggerate. Or did you really storm into the lobby like a fury straight from the deepest pit of hell?'

'I… Maybe I was a trifle, uh, beside myself.'

Ginny merely snorted. 'That sounds rather ominous. Listen,' she said, getting up and straightening her Healer's robes, 'why don't we go and have a very late lunch at the Leaky? Then you can tell me everything.'

'You mean I'm free to leave? After all that security ruckus and hell-hath-no-fury business?'

'I've poured oil on the waters.' Ginny wriggled out of her scrubs and dropped them into the laundry basket by the door. 'Because, my dear, I'm not nearly as saintly as you – I'm Mrs Potter and absolutely prepared to use that shamelessly to my advantage. Or my friends' advantage.'

Hermione got out of bed as quickly as she could – her legs were still a little weak, but she was feeling better by the second – and hugged the red-haired witch. 'You're a friend, Ginny, thanks! Lunch is on me. And I have to say, you're the only Healer I know who actually looks good in lime green.'

ooOoo

They'd eaten their soup in silence, but when the bowls had been removed and two massive portions of steak-and-kidney pie appeared on the table, Hermione felt strong enough to pour out her woes to Ginny.

'I fucked the Malfoy business up big time,' she told her friend.

Ginny nodded, while gingerly fishing the lemon wedge out of her mineral water. 'I know. What I don't know is how exactly you managed to bollocks it up. I mean there wasn't much that could've gone wrong.'

Eyeing the tendrils of steam that emerged from the pie, Hermione wagged her head. 'It seems that you underestimate my ability to – wait a moment! What do you mean, you know?'

'Well,' Ginny said around a bite of pie, 'St. Mungo's alerted Harry, of course. He's on your wand's ID charm,' she explained patiently, seeing Hermione's look of incomprehension. 'As next of kin. You haven't forgotten, have you?'

'No, but… Oh bloody – are you saying they told him how I behaved? He'll never let me hear the end of it! This is teasing material for the next twenty years, easily!'

'Worse.' Ginny took another bite. 'They informed him that you were in the spell damage ward, and as you'd told us yesterday that you'd go to see Malfoy this morning, he put two and two together and… Well, you can imagine. When Harry is being temporarily blinded by emotions, the result is usually three or five.'

Aghast, Hermione shoved a piece of pie into her mouth and promptly burned her tongue. Deciding to bear this just punishment with equanimity, she bravely swallowed. 'He Apparated to Malfoy Manor and beat him into a pulp?'

'No, he had the good sense to Floo Malfoy first, to make sure he was at home so he could go and hex him. So I suppose it was fortunate that Squiggleton came into his office, while he was in the midst of screaming his head off at Malfoy.'

'That would be the new Head Auror, yes?'

'The very same. He asked Harry what he was doing, and Harry told him to mind his own business – well, to make a long story short, one thing led to another, and Harry has been suspended for a month, without pay. He said he'd never seen anybody as angry as Kingsley, when he told him off. But' – her eyes narrowed – 'that's only because I haven't dealt with him yet.'

Being dealt with by a wrathful Ginny certainly wasn't a pleasant idea. Still, Hermione didn't quite understand. 'You said Harry has been suspended? But why?'

'Because Squiggleton had the audacity not to mind his own business and calmly interviewed Malfoy, who told him that there'd been a misunderstanding, and you'd left in one piece, but in a precipitous manner.'

'Which Harry didn't believe.'

'Well of course he didn't. He's Harry. So in the end he punched Squiggleton's nose and-'

Hermione hid her face in her hands. 'Oh no!' she moaned. 'And it's all my fault!'

'Absolutely not. If Harry flies off the handle and hits his superior, it's nobody's fault but Harry's. So stop wallowing and tell me what happened.'

When Hermione remained in her position, palms tightly clapped over her eyes, Ginny poked the back of her hand with her fork.

'Hermione! It's been more than twelve years! Stop thinking that you're the one responsible for everything! Harry's a grown man, and he's going to be a father. He'll have to take responsibility for his own actions, and you'll be busy enough answering for your own, if today's disaster is anything to go by. Now come on and tell me, or I'll continue to prod you with that fork.'

Unable to resist her friend's powers of persuasion, and also because she was ravenous and therefore not immune to the aroma wafting into her nose from the plate, Hermione raised her head and poured out her woes in between bites of pie.

When she'd finished, Ginny shrugged and shook her head. 'That's all? I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand how you came to be in such a state of, well, let's call it desperation. So Malfoy won't recommend you to his little friends. But he paid you, and you've done your job.'

'I know,' Hermione wailed. 'But I've made such a fool of myself! With Malfoy, of all people!'

'Exactly. Why would you give a damn about what Malfoy thinks of you?'

Shoulders sagging, Hermione stared at her plate through rising tears. 'I can't really explain it. But if there's anybody I don't want to despise me, it's him. Because… Because he thinks he's got a right to look down on me, because I'm Muggleborn. But if there's any despising to be done, I'm the one who ought to do it, not him!'

Ginny put down her cutlery and gave her friend a calculating look. 'Despise him, huh? He's quite… attractive.'

'I can see that for myself, Ginny. And it's got nothing to do with his looks, I assure you.'

'Hm. If you say so. But he's really very handsome. And I bet he's one hell of a lover.'

Hermione glared. 'Ginny, honestly!'

'Don't Ginny-honestly me. I was merely stating a fact.'

'The bit about him being one hell of a lover was a speculation!'

'Hardly.' Ginny smirked.

Glad that her mouth was currently empty, because otherwise she would have inhaled either pie or wine, Hermione tried to process this bit of information. 'Does that mean you – please Ginny, tell me you didn't sleep with Lucius Malfoy!'

'Of course I didn't, silly. But I know a few people who did.'

'A few? As in, more than one? I don't believe you.'

'Professor Sinistra,' Ginny said, rather too nonchalantly for Hermione's liking. 'Her daughter is Head Healer in the Magical Maladies department, and she told me. Her mum still goes all starry-eyed when somebody mentions his name. It was ages ago, of course, when he was barely out of school, but I suppose he'll have improved with time, don't you think?'

Hermione decided to ignore the bait. 'That's only one.'

'Pansy Parkinson's older sister Heather. And that isn't ancient history, because she tried to get him to marry her some time after his divorce. Rather unsuccessfully, I daresay.'

Maybe her head _was_ going to explode, Hermione thought. 'Anybody else?'

'Fleur's younger sister.'

'Gabrielle? But she's…'

'She's twenty-three, Hermione. People do grow up, even little sisters. But that's neither here nor there. If you're so keen on being the despiser instead of the despisee, you'll have to apologize to him, so you can go on despising him.'

'Apologize? To Lucius Malfoy?'

'That's what I said, yes. I really don't see any other possibility, given your obsession with despising.'

'I'd rather swallow my own tongue!'

'Try his, why don't you?' Ginny said and got up to fetch them another round of drinks, grinning and completely ignoring Hermione's sputtering.


	3. Chapter 3

PART III

'Ouch!' yelled the mirror in Hermione's living-room-cum-entrance. 'One more hex, and I'll break!'

'Then shut your sodding mouth!' she shouted back. 'You're not helping!'

'As you can probably see, I don't have a mouth,' the mirror retorted smugly. 'And as for being helpful, I have been charmed to sense how you wish to look, and to tell you in a straightforward but friendly manner how best to achieve that aim. Role-play simply isn't in my repertoire. I would also like to remind you that I have never actually met the man, which makes imitating him very-'

'Oh, be quiet already,' Hermione growled. She closed her eyes to concentrate, reopened them and began, 'Mr Malfoy. It seems there has been a misunderstanding – what?'

'I would of course be delighted to help,' the mirror said, 'if I could have a glimpse at the gentleman in question.'

'Not bloody likely. I'd no sooner allow Lucius Malfoy to enter my flat than-' She paused, unsure whether she'd heard correctly. Apparently she had, because whoever had knocked on her door did so again.

Wand drawn and growling, Hermione opened the door. Her view of the unexpected, not to mention unwanted, visitor was obscured by an enormous bunch of flowers.

'Ron!' she said, exasperated, 'If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times: don't come here with flowers every time you break up with a girlfriend. It's completely useless, not to mention insulting, and you'll be lucky if I don't whack you over the head with your… stupid…'

Her tirade came to a stuttering halt; her eyes had alighted on a pair of immaculately polished shoes, and now her brain supplied the information that Ron didn't wear spotless shoes. Ron wore grey trainers, which had originally been white. The funny thing was that she'd never actually seen him wear white trainers…

Time to get back on track. 'Erm…' Hermione said. 'You're not Ron, are you?'

'I am glad to say that I am not.' Malfoy moved the flowers to his left hand and extended his right. 'But maybe this isn't the best of times?'

If he'd been standing in the corridor for more than ten seconds, Hermione thought, he'd surely heard… It was probably better not to consider what he might have heard. She shook his hand and stepped back. 'No time like the present,' she said with false cheer, fuelled by embarrassment. 'Come in, Mr Malfoy. And you,' she addressed the mirror, 'stay quiet, if you know what's good for you.'

The foolish looking-glass obviously didn't know or care what was good for it. 'Mr Malfoy,' it intoned, 'I m very happy to reflect you. Would you be so kind as to say a few words and maybe assume a few striking poses?'

'Shut up!' Hermione hissed.

'The lady in whose possession I am currently,' the mirror continued unperturbed, 'wished me to vocally impersonate you, Sir, in order to rehearse a kind of monologue or speech.'

Mortified though she was, Hermione was also aware that Malfoy's bewilderment equalled her embarrassment.

'Impersonate me?' he repeated.

'Vocally. Yes, sir. I do offer my humble apologies for the split infinitive that escaped me previously. Now, if you would be kind enough to-'

A well-placed _Silencio_! quieted the obnoxious mirror. The spell also blasted it into a thousand glittering shards. Hermione ducked, and Malfoy sought cover behind the flowers.

'Are you quite sure you are all right, Miss Granger?' Malfoy asked, when he'd brushed the last splinter off his cloak.

She chose not to answer the question and offered instead to prepare them some tea.

ooOoo

Somebody was moaning, but this time Hermione knew exactly it was her. Somebody was also whimpering breathlessly, 'Yes, Lucius, please, oh please don't stop, oh my god, Lucius, please, yes, there, oh my god!' That was her, too. Somebody was having an orgasm compared to which a class four hurricane was a mere summer breeze.

When her limbs had stopped trembling uncontrollably, Hermione snuggled closer to the man who was indeed one hell of a lover. 'I'm not quite sure how I ended up in this bed,' she muttered.

'You were hardly that drunk, my sweet.'

He sounded a little weak, too, Hermione noticed with satisfaction. She half-turned and grabbed the champagne flute from the bedside table. Alcohol had been involved, of that she was sure, and there'd be hell to pay in the morning anyway. A little more couldn't really hurt.

'We had tea at my place,' she said tentatively.

'So we did. And then, unless my alcohol-addled memory deceives me, you made some sort of apology.'

Unbelievable though it was, she was feeling the first stirrings of arousal. Again. Smiling into his shoulder – and gods, did he smell wonderful – Hermione said, 'It was a very good apology. Very dignified.'

'If you say so.'

'I certainly do. Yours was quite good, too. Then we talked about Runes.'

'Meaning that you subjected me to some kind of scientific cross-interrogation.'

'We talked about Runes,' Hermione repeated, underlining her words with a chain of kisses along his collarbone.

Lucius fell back into the pillows, pulling her with him, so that she was sprawled across his upper body. 'And then,' he murmured, while his finger tickled the underside of her buttock, 'I asked you to dinner.'

'So far, so good.' She raised her head and gazed down into grey eyes that didn't look so cold anymore. 'But that's where things begin to get a little hazy.'

'You had quite a lot of wine.'

'That does happen sometimes, yes.'

'And you insisted on a triple brandy with your coffee.'

'Triple? I'm not sure I remember that.'

'I assure you it was triple. The second one, too. And when you were half through the third triple, you mentioned a conversation you had obviously had a few days ago with Mrs Ginevra Potter. My prowess as a lover seems to have been the prevailing subject.'

'It, uh, might have come up.'

His fingers wandered to more intimate places, where they were greeted with enthusiasm. 'You asked me, in a rather unambiguous fashion, whether I was half as good as my former lovers seem to claim.'

'I did?' Her head was already resting against his neck, so she didn't have to go to any trouble to hide her blushing face. Or the triumphant grin.

'Yes. I distinctly remember you asking, in no uncertain terms. So I answered that any prowess I might or might not possess was in the eye of the beholder, and things, well, progressed from there.'

'You certainly have a way with words. Would you believe me, if I told you that I don't remember whether you're good or not?'

Lucius raised her head with a finger under her chin. 'Not a word. But when was I ever able to resist a challenge?'

ooOoo

If fate had smiled upon her, Hermione ought by rights to have been awakened by a very aroused Lucius Malfoy who was eager for a morning shag.

Whether fate was involved or not, what Hermione felt when she opened her eyes was neither an eager mouth, nor indeed a cock or hand. She merely felt an overwhelming urge to put as wide a distance as possible between herself and the contents of her stomach.

She was fortunate enough to locate the bathroom door at first try, and didn't lose control over her recalcitrant peristalsis before she'd opened the toilet lid and pulled back her hair. When her stomach was finally empty, she sat down on the edge of the bathtub and took stock of the situation.

It was a bit like the captain doing a headcount of his crew after wrecking his vessel in shark-infested waters.

She was naked. Her head was pounding, her eyes were watering, there was a horribly acrid taste in her mouth, her skin was clammy with dried sweat, and her girly bits were sore and sticky.

Being the practical and sensible woman she was, she tiptoed to the door and noiselessly fished her wand from the bedside table. Once this mission had been successfully accomplished, she retreated back into the bathroom, locked the door and secured it with a couple of wards as vicious as her headache. Logic told her that surely there had to be a bell in the bathroom, in case the Master didn't feel like scrubbing his own back or fancied a cocktail to alleviate the ennui of bathing.

A minute later, she had tea, a toothbrush and hangover potion.

Fifteen minutes later, and again seated on the edge of the tub, her stock-taking yielded the following, more satisfactory result: she was naked. But for a lingering, slight soreness in her girly bits, she was feeling quite chipper. She vaguely remembered having the best sex ever and felt a grim determination to repeat the experience.

Malfoy, no Lucius, was probably in better shape than she'd been, but Hermione wasn't prepared to take any risks. So she rang for the house elf again and ordered tea and hangover potion for the Master. On second thought, she instructed the invisible elf to cast a cleansing and a mouth-freshening charm on him as well.

Then she started the arduous task of detangling her hair. Headache- and hangover-free as she was now, she felt goodwill towards all mankind and was thus inclined to give Lucius a little time before she pounced on him again. Undoing all the knots and snarls was going to take a good ten minutes. It was painstaking and sometimes painful work that kept her hands busy and allowed her mind to roam.

While her fingers were feeling their way through a particularly obstinate clump of hair at the back of her head, Hermione pondered whether last night's drunken tumble between the sheets had been a mistake or not. True, she hadn't had sex in a very long time. Ginny had commented on her lack of a sex life two days ago, during their lunch at the Leaky Cauldron.

To be precise, she had uttered some choice truths about Hermione's appearance, unveiled to her critical eyes by the hospital gown. Unshaved legs and a few forlorn specks of nail varnish on toenails that hadn't seen a pedicure charm in ages, Ginny had pointed out, were tell-tale signs that Hermione didn't expect to be seen naked anytime soon. The fearfully accurate observations on Hermione's bikini line hadn't gone down much better than the exhortations to get a life and, if not a boyfriend, at least sex.

In hindsight, Hermione was grateful for the shake-up her friend had given her. Although inwardly mocking herself, she'd dug out the book on cosmetic charms somebody – Molly Weasley? Lavender? She just couldn't remember – had given her years ago and set about giving herself a make-over as soon as she'd arrived home after lunch.

And the day after that, Malfoy had shown up on her doorstep with a bunch of flowers.

Once the awkward apologies had been performed, they'd both relaxed. He'd even complimented her on her excellent work and the speed with which she'd found out that the curse had already been permanently reversed by the Polyjuice Potion.

After she'd prepared another pot of tea, Hermione had given in to her innate inquisitiveness and asked him what being a woman, even for less than twenty-four hours, had felt like. His answer, although not overly detailed, had left her in no doubt that he'd made the best of an essentially unpleasant situation and considerably broadened his knowledge of the female body. Combined with Ginny's indiscretions from the previous day, his reply had sparked a vivid interest.

Hermione hadn't had too many sexual encounters in her life, and none of them had been initiated by her. With Malfoy it had been different, though. While they'd talked about Runes and curses and magical theory, she'd felt as if something was slowly fermenting within her. Something half-conscious and independent from rational thinking. When he'd asked if she wanted to go out and have dinner with him, the vague something had suddenly condensed into a clear resolution: she felt attracted, and she was going to act accordingly. It would never even have occurred to her to think that she'd wait until he made the first move.

Granted, she'd needed a bit of Dutch courage.

But then she'd done it, feeling more reckless and exhilarated than she had in years.

So it couldn't have been a mistake, could it?

Hermione wished she had a little more experience in matters of one-night-stand etiquette. She was positive that she wanted her morning shag. How did one proceed after that, though? Did one stay for breakfast, or did one just get out of bed, dress and Disapparate after vague assurances of "no strings attached" and "see you round"?

Hair wild but sans tangles, she decided that it was time to make an appearance in the bedroom. First the shag, and she'd take it from there.

ooOoo

The weather had been fine in the early morning – too sunny, indeed, to be appreciated if one had a severe hangover – but by ten o'clock it had begun to rain, and a fierce wind was bending the trees to its will.

They woke from a light, post-coital doze at the same time, and Lucius lazily turned to look out at the sheets of rain that were being pressed against the windows by gusts of wind. 'Breakfast in bed, I think,' he said, reaching for the bell.

That was sorted then. She'd stay for breakfast, and afterwards she'd get dressed. She needed to go home first, for a change of clothes and to feed Crookshanks, and then she'd have to catch up with her work. In spite of having had too little sleep and too much to drink, Hermione felt energized and ready to take on the world.

They'd been eating in silence for a while, both listening to the intertwining melodies of wind, rain and the flames in the fireplace, when Lucius put down his half-eaten croissant and asked, 'So, when are we going to announce the engagement?'

Almost annoyed, because he'd jarred her breakfast-induced state of bliss, Hermione took a sip of coffee. 'Whose engagement?'

'Well, ours of course.'

With a trembling hand Hermione put down her cup. 'I beg your pardon?'

'Our engagement,' he repeated, frowning slightly. 'When should we announce it?'

Banishing the tray, grabbing her clothes and getting dressed was the work of a moment. Hermione stood next to the bed, staring at its occupant while groping for her shoes with her feet. Then a fleeting memory surfaced of sandals being stripped off in the entrance hall and a cloak discarded on the stairs – well, she wasn't going to waste precious time searching for those items.

'I… I have to go,' she stammered, backing away from the bed and towards the door. She fumbled for the handle, found and opened it and, with a last glance over her shoulder at a clearly baffled Lucius Malfoy, she ran out of the room, down the corridor and stairs as if pursued by Fiendfyre.

The rush of cold air and rain that hit her when she wrenched open the entrance door nearly took her breath away. The marble steps were chilly and slippery under her bare feet, and she nearly fell, but then she felt gravel sting her soles and made a dash for the gate, beyond which she'd be able to Apparate.

ooOoo

A large shard of her mirror, obviously overlooked the night before, was glittering maybe an inch from her right foot. She'd been fortunate enough not to step on it when she Apparated right into her flat; a nonverbal spell, and it was gone. Shivering and out of breath, Hermione leaned against the door, closed her eyes and slowly slid down until she was sitting on the floor. She had to get out of her wet clothes and dry herself. Her bare feet hurt, too. She'd have to wash them; probably there were some small wounds, torn by the gravel, which would need healing.

But first she needed a few seconds to calm down.

Her breathing gradually slowed, and her heart didn't feel anymore as if it was trying to break through her ribcage. Teeth clattering, Hermione gave herself a mental push – catching her death by sitting here any longer wasn't going to solve anything. She got up and opened her eyes at the same time, and…

And there he sat. On her couch, clad in a dressing gown, with Crookshanks on his lap.

She wasn't afraid, merely angry. Mostly with herself, because she had lost precious seconds cleaning up broken glass and shivering, instead of casting wards instantly that would keep him out. Of course he was able to Apparate straight from his bedroom. Maybe he'd already been here when she arrived. Well, that was a moot point now. He was here, and she'd have to get rid of him. It wasn't going to be nice, but this time, she wasn't going to apologize.

A hot spike of jealousy stabbed at her – Crookshanks, that traitor, was still lounging on Malfoy's thighs in all his ginger glory. She was going to read him the riot act later, whether he understood her or not.

'What are you doing here?' Hermione addressed Malfoy.

'I am sitting-'

'Don't play silly buggers, Malfoy. Why are you sitting on my couch?'

'Since our conversation was terminated in a rather hasty fashion, I meant to continue it here,' he replied calmly.

'Well, I've got nothing to say to you. Good bye.'

All that moved was his right eyebrow. 'Are you dumping me, Hermione?'

'Dumping… I don't believe you! We don't have a relationship, how could I be dumping you?'

'We may not have a relationship yet,' he countered calmly, 'but I'm not in the habit of sleeping around.'

She was still shivering badly, but felt too agitated to cast a drying or warming spell. She'd probably turn herself into a mummy or set herself on fire. So she remained standing on the spot and trying to make sense of a dialogue in which she somehow seemed to have been given the wrong part.

If he wanted to play the broken flower, so be it. But she knew he was lying. 'Oh, really?' she fired back. 'What about Heather Parkinson, Pansy's older sister?'

'The Parkinsons had expressed a desire to see us married. Unfortunately I had to decline in the end, because the marriage contract they – and, I regret having to say, their daughter as well – produced at the eleventh hour was unacceptable.'

As Hermione hadn't anticipated that he'd actually answer the question, her righteous indignation lost some of its momentum. She wasn't going to give up, though. 'And Gabrielle Delacour?'

He smiled. 'You seem very well informed, Hermione. Gabrielle was more than willing to marry me, but ceded to the pressure put on her by her family. They opposed a marriage to a former Death Eater, threatening disownment, and she could not bear the thought of living in a foreign country without the possibility of returning to her family home from time to time.'

This was not going well. She was beginning to feel something very akin to pity, and that was the first step on a very slippery slope. She mustn't feel empathy. He didn't deserve any better. He'd been a Death Eater, and if people shunned him or were interested in him only because of his money, well, he'd have to lie in the bed he'd made for himself.

'All right, so you don't sleep around. I don't sleep around either. That doesn't mean that I can't have meaningless sex, if I so choose, without having to get engaged the morning after.'

'It was fantastic sex, and if it was meaningless to you, it certainly wasn't to me.'

'That,' Hermione countered, 'is your problem, not mine. You'll have to deal with it, tough luck.'

He looked down at Crookshanks, as if the Kneazle had given him a cue. 'Well, I _am_ dealing with it. I came here to tell you that I have no intention of being got rid of, as if I were a plague of Cornish Pixies.'

'But… But that's completely insane! Lucius, I neither want to be engaged to you, nor to have a relationship with you! I don't know you, and you don't know me! You don't even like me, for god's sake!'

'I'd prefer to be the judge of my own feelings, if it's all the same to you. And if I may remind you, the purpose of an engagement is exactly that: getting to know each other.'

Hermione was tempted to stamp her foot and scream, maybe also throw something at him. The man was completely infuriating and, worse, he was appropriating – and successfully, too – her tactics of remaining perfectly calm in the face of helpless anger. Fists balled, she stared at him. 'Well, I don't want to get to know you. And now leave, or I'm going to hex you!'

He deposited Crookshanks on the couch and rose. 'As you wish. But I will, of course, continue to pursue my aim.'

'I warn you!' She crossed the room until she was directly before him and poked his chest. 'If you dare stalk me…'

'Court you,' he said, catching her hand and kissing it. 'As far as I know, there is no law against courting.'

Then he was gone, and Hermione remained staring at the spot he'd vacated, fuming and irrationally envious because he was able to Disapparate without a noise.

ooOoo

'Considering that you're not interested in Malfoy,' Ginny said archly, 'we seem to be having a lot of emergency meetings lately.'

Hermione had taken a shower and healed her poor, abused feet and, after a brief deliberation whether to chastise Crookshanks first or Floo Ginny directly, opted for the latter. 'I know. I'm sorry. Could I come over, please? Or did you have other plans,' she added, remembering belatedly that it was Sunday.

'Get some takeaway and come over. We ought to have lunch at the Burrow, but frankly Mum's advice on how to be pregnant is getting on my nerves anyway. We'll send Harry over, though. Oh, by the way, don't you dare apologize to him. I've pretty much convinced him that it was all his own fault and don't want that undermined by you.'

Hermione shrugged. 'Okay. But if he's going to the Burrow, once he tells them why he hit Squiggleton, they'll declare him Hero of the Month anyway.'

'Mum will, and probably Ron, but I already talked to the more sensible members of my family. Never mind Harry, though. Can you get me some sushi? I'd kill for sushi.'

Laden with paper bags, Hermione arrived at Godric's Hollow forty-five minutes later. Harry was already gone, and Ginny zeroed in on the sushi containers like a vulture. 'Thanks, Hermione, you're a life saver!'

While Ginny was already devouring her prey, Hermione summoned plates and cutlery from the kitchen.

'We've got a few bottles of white wine in the ice box,' Ginny said.

Stomach clenching, Hermione shook her head. 'No, thanks. I'll have mineral water, too. I had a bit too much last night, and still can't quite cope with the thought of alcohol.'

Ginny grinned. 'Drowned your sorrows? Wine-and-chocolate binge?'

'N-no. Not exactly. Dinner with Lucius, I mean Malfoy. And don't give me that meaningful look, Ginny. It was horrible.'

The worst bites of hunger assuaged, Ginny rooted for the soy sauce and wasabi. 'What exactly was horrible? Dinner? Did he take you to some posh place where you have to eat caramelized tripe and nightingales' livers on quince mousse?'

'Yuck! No, the food was lovely.'

'So what was horrible then? The company?'

Hermione sighed and nibbled listlessly on a spring roll. 'The company wasn't bad either, to say the truth. But things went a bit awry this morning, when-'

Ginny shot up like a rattle snake. 'This morning? As in, the Morning After? As in, the morning after wild, uninhibited sex with Lucius Malfoy? Had you at least shaved your legs?'

Torn between laughter, exasperation and the desire to stab Ginny with her own chopsticks, Hermione put down her plate. 'You're totally obsessed with sex, Ginny. But yes, I'd followed your advice, if you must know. Legs shaved, feet in prime shape, the full works.'

'And?' Ginny gesticulated with a slice of salmon. 'Don't be so disgustingly discreet, Hermione. Tell me, how was he?'

'I didn't come here to discuss Lucius's, Malfoy's I mean, skills in bed.'

'Probably not. But I warn you, unless I get some of the juicy stuff, Aunt Ginny's Club for the Terminally Desperate will remain closed.'

'You're totally immoral, has anybody told you that?'

Ginny merely shrugged and reached for the maki rolls.

'Besides,' Hermione continued, 'I was completely blotto last night. I don't remember a lot.'

'And this morning? Before things went awry?' Hermione tried to look aloof, but without much success. 'I knew it! All right, give! Look, darling, you know you want to talk about it. You can't have fantastic sex and not want to talk about it.'

'Does that mean you and Harry don't have fantastic sex?'

'We do, but we're married. That's different. It's the one-night stands one likes to talk about. Discussing married sex is a breach of trust. But a one-night stand involves neither that level of trust nor real intimacy.'

'You seem to have given this an awful lot of thought,' Hermione said crossly.

'You bet I have.'

Despite her show of reluctance, Hermione acknowledged – at least in the privacy of her own mind – that Ginny was right: she did want to talk about it. She needed to discuss the rather awkward, not to say catastrophic, turn things had taken at breakfast. Her behaviour had been foolish, a panicked reaction to something she hadn't seen coming. It made her feel terribly silly and inadequate, and she didn't want to cope with that all on her own. What had happened before, during the night and in the morning, didn't call for discussion but for… sharing it with someone who understood how much the experience had buoyed her up. The words didn't come to her easily, though.

'It was… really quite nice,' she said hesitantly.

Ginny snorted. 'You could say the same about afternoon tea with Aunt Mathilda. Is he a good kisser?'

A smile, of the kind it's impossible to stop from spreading, lit Hermione's face. 'He could kiss for England. I thought my knickers were going to combust.'

'On a scale of one to ten, where would he be?'

'Fifteen,' Hermione said promptly.

'That good? Wow.' Ginny scoured the containers with a predatory look. 'Do you mind if I have a bit of that crispy duck?'

ooOoo

An hour had gone by, all the food had vanished, and Lucius Malfoy's anatomy and prowess in bed been thoroughly discussed.

'All right,' Ginny said. She'd stretched out on the couch, looking like Crookshanks when he'd managed to steal the ham. 'And now to the horrible bit.'

Hermione cleared her throat, mostly for effect, before dropping her bombshell.

'He seems to think that we're engaged and told me as much while we were having breakfast. I freaked out and ran, and he came after me. I made it clear I didn't want to be engaged to him and told him to bugger off. He said he didn't sleep around, can you believe it?'

'Actually, I can.' Ginny summoned the water bottle and refilled her glass. 'Those old pureblood families…' She raised her eyebrows in a meaningful way.

This wasn't quite the indignant outrage Hermione had assumed would follow her sensational revelation. But then she hadn't yet disclosed Malfoy's barefaced lies.

'He had the gall to claim that he'd been engaged, well sort of, to both Gabrielle and Heather Parkinson! Only they called it off, well he did, with Heather, because of a marriage contract he found unacceptable, and with Gabrielle, it was allegedly her parents who opposed the match.'

'Mmh.' Ginny nodded thoughtfully. 'Yes, that makes sense.'

Hermione had to close her eyes momentarily, because Ginny's answers were giving her vertigo – she had the feeling as if the terrain of righteous fury she'd believed firm had suddenly vanished from under her feet, and she was looking down into some parallel universe where former Death Eaters saved themselves for marriage.

'Ginny, it can't make sense. Please, tell me it doesn't.'

'Well it does. You see, those old pureblood families' – Ginny shoved another cushion under her back and sighed contentedly – 'and I mean those with money and extensive property, they do have a rather strict code of conduct. Rules that have developed over the centuries. It isn't morals as much as practical considerations. First of all, there always has to be an heir, but having an heir is at least as important as having no by-blows. I remember reading about their marriage vows once – they absolutely exclude infidelity.'

'I'm sure that's all very interesting, but what's it got to do with me?'

'Would you mind preparing some coffee?'

The impulse to strangle her friend was strong, but Hermione resisted. 'You're pregnant and therefore not supposed to have coffee. Besides, I don't want to make coffee, I want to know-'

'There's decaf in the kitchen. The way you look, you could use a cup, too. And I promise to tell you everything.'

Mind reeling, Hermione got up and went to the kitchen. When she returned with two mugs – decaf for Ginny and a rather strong brew for herself – Ginny continued her lecture on pureblood behaviour.

'It's like this: Purebloods aren't allowed to cheat on their partners, and if a partner dies or there's a divorce, and they want to have sex, they have to get married again. As I said, no illegitimate children. It's of paramount importance for them to keep all their assets in one hand, always entailed to the male heir. The percentage of land owned by wizards is minimal, compared to Muggle property anyway, and if they started to split an already limited amount of land, they'd soon end up with grounds the size of a tea-towel.'

'Oh.' Hermione took a sip of the hot, bitter liquid. 'That makes sense, but… So what you're implying is that this whole behaviour thing works the other way round, too? If they're unmarried and sleep with somebody, they've got to marry them?'

'That's exactly what I'm saying. If Malfoy knocked you up-'

'Well, he hasn't,' Hermione interrupted her, bristling with indignation.

'That's for you to know and him to find out. Anyway, he has to allow for the possibility. Hence, the engagement. But,' she said, poking Hermione's shoulder with her foot, 'consider this: knowing that sex is only possible with a woman he also intends to marry, he won't hop into bed with just any female that crosses his path.'

'Now you've definitely made my day. Lucius Malfoy thinks I'm special. I want to die right now, because life just won't get better than this.'

Disregarding her friend's attempt at sarcasm, Ginny scrutinized her over the rim of her cup. 'There's something I'd really like to know,' she said.

'Oh, come, Ginny! I've already told you-'

'No, no. I didn't mean the juicy details. What I'd really like to know is, why are you so horrified by the idea of a relationship with him, which might eventually lead to marriage? From what you told me, I don't get the impression that coercion was involved. Rather the contrary, I'd say. So you obviously find him attractive – why not give the man a chance?'

'Is that really you talking, Ginny? He's Lucius Malfoy, the man who slipped you Tom Riddle's diary!'

'As you said, he gave it to me, not to you. I've made my peace with him, and besides this isn't about me, but you marrying him. As far as I know, he never hurt or insulted you directly.'

'He was at the Department of Mysteries!'

'Yes, but he was the one who tried to negotiate. Look, Hermione, I'm not trying to play the go-between for Malfoy. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't hide behind his past, if you don't want him. If he's that repulsive to you, tell him.'

'Of course I don't find him repulsive!' Hermione exclaimed. Then her shoulders sagged. 'But I'm sure he doesn't want to marry me, not really. He just had to go through with this whole engagement spiel, because he inadvertently had sex with me. Oh I'm so glad you think it's funny,' she said scathingly, when Ginny burst into peals of laughter.

Wiping tears from her eyes, Ginny did her best to stop giggling. 'You should hear yourself! Malfoy is a clever, calculating sort of guy. I'm sure he doesn't even sneeze inadvertently, and he certainly doesn't have sex inadvertently. You were the one who was drunk, not he, right?'

Hermione reluctantly admitted that this was correct. 'But,' she pointed out, 'if he's such a clever, calculating sort of guy, and he really means to marry me, then he must have a hidden agenda!'

Ginny rolled her eyes. 'Hermione, he's been a model citizen since the war. Are you implying that he intends to chain you to the dungeon walls once you're his wife, and torture you? He'd be mad to do such a thing. You're a war hero, for Merlin's sake!'

'So _that's_ probably it!' Hermione said triumphantly. 'He wants to redeem himself by marrying a war hero, the slippery, underhanded bastard!'

With a sigh, Ginny put her empty cup on the table and snuggled into her cushions. 'I love you dearly, Hermione, but sometimes you're absolutely infuriating. No, let me finish,' she said when Hermione opened her mouth to protest. 'I'm going to say what I want to say, and then I'm going to have a nap and send you home, so you can think about it.

'First off, Malfoy doesn't need to redeem himself anymore. He's done that, and he's been accepted back into society. He's even a Hogwarts school governor, and you can't get much more redeemed than that. Secondly, he's not an idiot. You're what, twenty-five years younger than he is, aren't you? So he knows you'll probably outlive him, and if he didn't like or fancy you, he wouldn't even dream of burdening himself with a wife he'll have to live with till the end of his days, unless he wants to go through another divorce.

'And thirdly, and that's what I'd really advise you to think about, do you truly think so little of yourself that you believe a man has to have a hundred hidden agendas, because he wants to marry you?'


	4. Chapter 4

PART IV

The agency was closed on weekends, but Hermione still had to finish her case notes from the client she'd had before Lucy M. had completely disrupted her life. And, or so she told herself, she wanted to have a look at the diary to be prepared for Monday's appointments. There was also a Pensieve at the office, but of course that wasn't why she'd decided to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon away from home.

Crookshanks (the vile traitor!) hadn't reacted when she rattled the tin of Floo powder and opened his carrier, and so she left him snoozing on the couch. She would've liked to tell him off for choosing the exact spot where Malfoy had sat, but that would have involved thinking of Malfoy, and she didn't want to think of Lucius. Malfoy. Damn it.

The office was cold and unwelcoming in the dim grey light.

Hermione lit a fire on the grate and blocked the Floo connection, because you never knew with Malfoy. The man was capable of popping into her office to pop the question. Right now, she couldn't deal with any popping.

Yawning, she went to the kitchenette to prepare some coffee. No espresso for her today, as she was already strung-up enough. The lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with her, and she felt rather tired and exhausted after her talk with Ginny. There was a slice of fruitcake in the ice box; after sniffing and carefully examining it for traces of mould, Hermione put it on a plate and carried it back to her office together with the coffee and a glass of water.

She put everything on the desk and lit a few candles. The room looked friendlier now, and warmer. The heat from the fireplace was also beginning to spread. It was a miracle, really, that she hadn't caught cold in the morning – no. That avenue of thought was closed off until further notice.

Hermione began working on her case notes. Concentration didn't come easily, and she just couldn't seem to find the right words. This isn't a work of literature, she told herself. It's a report on Mrs Goatwendle's robe-chewing wardrobe, which will go into our files cabinet. You're not James Joyce, for heaven's sake.

The admonitions didn't help, though. Her subconscious knew exactly what she had come here to do, and it kept eating large bits of her vocabulary until she threw down the quill in frustration.

'All right,' she said aloud. 'This is probably the stupidest, most irresponsible thing you could possibly do, Hermione Granger, but if you're such a stubborn idiot, go on, do it. But don't you dare complain to me…'

Aware that this was becoming slightly ridiculous, she abandoned her soliloquy and went to get the Pensieve.

ooOoo

The brilliant thing about extracting and viewing memories was this: you didn't just get to see what you'd consciously seen at the time. You got to see everything your eyes had taken in, whether you knew and remembered it or not. The combined magic of the Pensieve and of the spell used to pull out the memories bypassed the mind's censure.

The memory was there, in the Pensieve, shimmering alluringly. Hermione tightened her grip on her wand and stood for a while, berating herself silently for being an imbecile, and a voyeuristic imbecile at that. To be fair, though, voyeurism wasn't her only motive (and was the expression really appropriate, if you meant to watch yourself having sex?). Ginny's verbal parting salvo had hit her vulnerable spot. Since her own, conscious memory of the dinner wasn't too clear, she first wanted to make sure how much Malfoy had had to drink.

And after that… well, yes. She wanted to have more than blurry images and pleasant but vague tactile recollections of the previous night.

Her wand touched the liquid and swirled it around in the stone basin. The smoky outline of an image rose from the vessel, of her and Lucius entering the restaurant. Well, she could skip that part. Things were likely to get interesting from the main course onwards. She stirred the memory again, until the waiter shimmered into sight, taking away the bread, butter and the empty plates on which their starters had been served. Then she touched her forehead to the surface and entered the memory.

Half an hour later, having repeated the process four times, Hermione sat down at her desk and took a despondent sip of lukewarm coffee.

The bottle of white wine they'd had with their starters had been half full when the waiter removed it. Of two bottles of red, Lucius had had three glasses. And he'd taken a double brandy with his coffee. Their dinner had lasted more than three hours, and he'd also drunk the contents of a large bottle of mineral water. While she admired the capacity of his bladder – he'd excused himself to go to the loo only once – Hermione was sure that he hadn't even been tipsy.

Unlike her.

And she couldn't even blame Lucius for having clandestinely refilled her glass whenever she wasn't looking, because she was the one who'd nodded every time the waiter offered to top it up. It had also been her, and not her host, who ordered the second and third brandy.

She had to award herself points, though, for being a brilliant, well-behaved and rather amusing drunk. She had neither slurred her consonants nor told rude jokes or, worse, jokes that started with a half-forgotten punch line and then slowly petered out. And the way she'd propositioned him… Maybe it hadn't been the most subtle offer of sex in the history of seduction, but she was secretly proud of herself.

Still, Ginny had been right: Lucius Malfoy had been compos mentis when he caught the ball, well Bludger rather, she'd whacked at him and playfully threw it back at her. He'd known exactly what he let himself in for. That, on the other hand, meant…

Another gulp of now-cool coffee didn't meet with her maltreated stomach's approval. There'd be mashed potatoes for dinner. At least Crookshanks was going to enjoy them, if she generously added another pat of butter to his share.

Thinking of mashed potatoes and purring half-Kneazles was all very well, but now she had to decide whether she wanted to view more of her memories or return them to her head, where they'd turn back into an uncertain, patchy sequence of half-remembered images.

Hermione was a clever woman and thus came up with the perfect excuse within less than five minutes: whatever her conscious memory had blacked out was still in her subconscious. If it was in her subconscious, it was likely to emerge in the form of dreams. Dreams were something she could neither choose nor control, and therefore it was preferable to view the memories and be done with it. It was one of the lousiest arguments she'd ever fabricated, but it would hold firm against her none-too-eager efforts at deconstruction.

Her wand stirred the glittering liquid. Two diaphanous figures were ascending a staircase. One of them bent over to pull off and throw away first one sandal, then the second one, which sailed through the air in a wide arc and landed on a chandelier. So that was where it had got to. Fascinated, Hermione watched her foggy image lean backwards over the balustrade, laughing, while a shadowy Lucius bowed over her to kiss her throat.

It seemed that she had found the ideal starting point.

ooOoo

It was unnecessary to walk on tiptoes or try to breathe quietly, because neither her nor Lucius's memory self could see or hear her. All the same, Hermione instinctively tried to make as little noise as possible as she followed the couple.

Hermione knew rationally that the woman who'd just entered the bedroom and was now impatiently tackling the buttons of Malfoy's shirt was herself. But, even though the events she was witnessing had taken place less than twenty-four hours ago, the emotional distance between herself and her memory-self was palpable, and she felt as if she was trespassing on forbidden territory.

She slipped into the bedroom silently and cautiously and sat down on the floor next to the fireplace. Practically a ring seat, she thought to herself, and clapped her hand over her mouth to dampen a snort.

The hilarity was a mere defensive reflex, she knew. There was nothing even remotely funny about the heated urgency with which those two – no, Hermione reminded herself, she and Lucius – removed each other's clothes, or about their ragged breathing when finally naked skin met naked skin.

Hermione's mouth went dry as she observed herself, now without a stitch of clothing, sit down on the foot end of the bed and grasp his buttocks to pull him closer, so she could take his cock into her mouth. Speechless, she watched her memory-self suck off Lucius Malfoy. She hated giving blow jobs! Whenever she'd reluctantly pushed herself to do it, she'd done so in the hope that her partner would reciprocate. But memory-Hermione seemed to be enjoying herself vastly.

Curiosity now stronger than any misguided sense of propriety, Hermione rose and went closer to the bed – she just _had_ to look at his face. Oh dear, she thought. Good heavens, he's certainly enjoying himself, too. His face was a study in controlled ecstasy; she could see his abdominal muscles quiver with the effort of holding back.

Just when she thought that he couldn't possibly restrain himself much longer, he pulled back and gave memory-Hermione a none-too-gentle shove, so she came to lie on the duvet, breathing heavily, spread open before him.

She reflexively clutched her throat when her memory-self looked exactly in her direction. Was that really her? This woman, who screamed and begged and writhed, as Malfoy kneeled down and buried his face between her thighs? This woman, who swore like a sailor when he briefly lifted his head and just tickled and caressed her thighs and abdomen? Who kneaded her own breasts and pinched her nipples? Who – oh Merlin, was she really _that_ flexible? She could really touch her ears with her knees?

Hermione remained rooted to the spot, transfixed, until the two in the bed fell asleep in a tangle of sweaty limbs, hair and sheets.

ooOoo

There was of course a reason why Pensieves couldn't be purchased by just anybody. For one, they were extremely costly, but the price alone would not have been a sufficient mechanism of control. In order to obtain a Pensieve from one of the two authorized dealers in England, a wizard or witch had to submit proof of needing it for professional reasons.

Most Pensieves belonged to institutions like St. Mungo's, the Wizengamot and others, but law firms, for example, could claim the need for them, too, as had Hermione's curse breaking agency.

There was a half-forgotten sub-committee in some sub-department of the Ministry of Magic, which authorized the sales and was also supposed to ensure that Pensieves were used according to the rules. The two wizards who made up the committee, neither of them a day under one-hundred and twenty, hadn't moved out of their dingy office for at least half a century, though. And even the most conscientious employers scarcely ever made sure whether their staff didn't indulge in a bit of private memory-gazing on the sly; it would have been too difficult and time-consuming, and not really worth the effort, as the effect of too frequent use of a Pensieve was nowhere near as pernicious as, say, sniffing powdered Bowtruckle eggs.

But there was a certain risk of addiction, of losing oneself in the vivid images of a past that merely seemed alive.

Hermione was, of course, aware of the hazards. Still, she thought, watching just one more time couldn't really hurt, could it? Merely to take in all the details, so she wouldn't feel she'd missed anything… She was struggling with her common sense and had almost overcome it, when the door to her office opened and Padma came in.

'It seems,' she said when they'd exchanged hallos (rather awkward on Hermione's side), 'that I'm not the only one who works on a Sunday. Anything interesting?' She gestured at the Pensieve.

'N-not as such, no.' Oh, how she hated lying. 'I was merely going through my memories of the Malfoy case – I thought I'd start on the documentation and wanted to make sure that I'd recorded all the tests I performed.'

Padma grinned. 'Mind if I have a look? I'd love to see him transform.'

'Maybe later, if that's fine with you?' She just needed time to exchange her compromising memories for those she'd mentioned to Padma. 'What are you doing here, by the way?'

'I'm meeting with Draco in' – she glanced at the clock on Hermione's desk – 'about fifteen minutes. I thought the Howling Ghoul at Mr Maddox's holiday cottage would be just the thing for him, what do you reckon?'

'Draco? You mean Draco Malfoy?'

'Do you know another Draco? We hired him last week as a subcontractor – you didn't forget, did you?'

As a matter of fact, she had forgotten. The contract had been on her desk last Monday, and she'd signed it just before Lucy M. had strutted into her office. The subsequent events had wiped it from her memory.

'I, erm, no. Of course not. But Maddox rings a bell – didn't he have a Boggart three weeks ago?'

'So he did.' Padma perched on the edge of the desk. 'Given that there wasn't a Ghoul in the house when I went there for the Boggart, I strongly suspect somebody put it there. Draco can investigate that, too, once he's got rid of it. Maddox was quite upset, poor old thing.'

Hermione nodded absentmindedly. 'What shape do you think a Boggart takes on for Draco?' she said slowly.

'You can ask him that yourself. We're going out for a welcome-to-the-team drink after the briefing, why don't you come too? You're the boss after all.'

'I'd have to be very drunk to ask such a question,' Hermione protested. 'And I already had…' She fell silent abruptly. No, she was certainly not going to tell Padma about getting drunk last night. Strictly speaking, Lucius hadn't been a client anymore, but having dinner with him was ethically questionable all the same. Not to mention sucking his… Stop. She had to stop thinking right there.

'You already had what?'

Every lie begets another lie, she thought. 'A few glasses of wine with my lunch. I went to Godric's Hollow to see Ginny.'

'So, does that mean you are coming or you aren't?'

Given her recent history with Draco's father, she really ought to say no. But it was alluring. Curiosity was already weaving a net of temptation around her mind. If she played her cards well, maybe she'd be able to steer their conversation in the right direction, get a bit of inside information on Lucius and his, erm, engagements…

'Why not?' she said. 'I can stick to mineral water, and, as you said, I'm the boss. It's practically my duty.'

ooOoo

The Turtle and Elephants was a cosy, slightly shabby pub tucked away in a narrow dead-end street in the wizarding part of Hampstead. Hermione's flat was just around the corner, and Padma and her son shared a flat with her twin sister only three streets away. Unlike the magical residential areas in Greenwich, Knightsbridge and the Docklands, Hampstead had never attracted the fashionable crowd or chic couples with kids. Lower-ranking ministry employees lived there, as did a few tradeswizards, young couples and many young singles who had just come to London for their studies, an apprenticeship or their first job.

Hermione liked living there. The Turtle and Elephants had become something like her second living room, not only because she'd become friends with Sol, the bartender, but also because the ministry clientele preferred The Staff and Knob. She'd never been quite happy with her work or her co-workers – with the notable exception of Penny – and hence not overly keen to meet them outside a professional setting.

Sol looked remarkably like Rasputin, but he was one of the gentlest, kindest individuals Hermione had ever known. When a pub brawl broke out – not that that happened very often – he was always reluctant to draw his wand and cushioned the floor before he cast Petrificus Totalus or a Leg Locker Curse. In all the nine years she'd been a regular, never once had Hermione seen him hit anybody with a stunner.

Almost as assiduous as Ginny in his exhortations for Hermione to find herself a boyfriend, he wasn't much help: his standards were markedly higher than his favourite customer's. If any man had been lucky enough to pass Hermione's own critical examination, he'd certainly fail Sol's. Sol, not Sunday lunch with mum and dad, was the Patented Boyfriend Acid Test.

Hermione was therefore pleasantly surprised, when Sol greeted Draco with a nicotine-stained smile and a vigorous handshake.

The ladies sat down in Hermione's customary booth, and Draco went to get the drinks.

'Sol likes him!' Padma whispered.

'It's a miracle,' Hermione hissed back.

They couldn't pursue this interesting exchange any further, because Draco was already coming back with three pints of lager and an assortment of nibbles. Show-off that he was, he couldn't resist making the glasses and packets perform an intricate ballet in the air before lowering them onto the table.

He and Padma were still discussing the best way to go about Mr Maddox's Howling Ghoul problem. Hermione, who'd let herself be talked into having a beer instead of mineral water, was able to observe him at leisure while taking small sips from her pint. To her surprise, the yeasty bitterness made her feel better instead of worse, as she'd feared. Maybe she was turning into the kind of alcoholic who always needed to maintain a certain level of blood alcohol…

She grinned to herself at the thought and turned her attention back to their blond companion.

In the twelve years between the Battle of Hogwarts and the interview she'd conducted with Draco about two weeks ago, she hadn't seen him once. He'd told her that after the war, he'd finished his schooling at Durmstrang, and once he'd obtained his wizarding diploma there, he'd worked with Charms and Transfiguration Masters all around the world. When they'd parted with a final, cordial handshake, she'd been impressed with his CV, good manners and the way he'd grown into his Malfoy-ish looks.

Her mind's eye envisioned Draco standing between two figures: his former self, as she'd known him during their sixth year, and his father. There was a little of both in him, she thought, at least as far as his outward appearance was concerned. He was the same age as her, young for a wizard, and when he smiled or pushed his heavy blond fringe back from his forehead, the sixteen-year-old boy shimmered through the surface. Certain gestures and mannerisms, though – the way he looked down to examine his fingernails, a certain minuscule tilt of his head when he listened attentively – were pure Lucius.

In the meantime, Draco and Padma's conversation had drifted from the subject of Ghouls to more private matters.

'It seems,' Hermione joined the conversation, 'that I'm the only one here whose parents are not divorced.'

She was throwing a bait, in more than one sense: not only did she want to see how he reacted to her in a purely personal exchange, she was also very curious whether he'd merely acknowledge what she'd said, or if he was going to elaborate. If it was the latter, would he be careful not to give away anything that concerned him or his family? Or was he going to open up a little, as much, anyway, as one could reasonably expect in this kind of setting? She certainly hoped so.

'And you have no idea how lucky you are,' he muttered.

Padma's eyes narrowed as she looked from one to the other. Then she merely raised an eyebrow and began to open the packets of nibbles.

Hermione shot her a quick smile before she picked up the thread of her conversation with Draco. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be tactless.'

He shrugged. 'You merely stated a fact.'

'Yes, but I didn't want to make it look as if I was gloating. Do you see your parents often?'

'I try to see each of them about three or four times a year.' He drank deeply from his pint. 'That's the trouble when your parents are divorced: you have to go home, which of course means two different homes, eight times a year instead of four.'

'Yes,' she said slowly, 'I guess that must be emotionally exhausting. I know I couldn't do it.'

'You get used to it, Granger.'

'I suppose you do. Did your mother remarry? Because,' she hastened to add, 'I know Padma's mum did.'

A frown appeared between his brows. 'We're trying to keep it all very hushed-up, but my mother is on the verge of getting married to some immensely rich guy from Russia – Sergey's Simmering Samovars, if that means anything to you.'

'You mean Sergey Pletnev? The samovar millionaire? I think I read about his samovars, aren't they self-heating or something?'

'That, and the tea always has exactly the strength and temperature the drinker likes. Very ingenious – I tried to figure out the charms but…' Draco emptied his pint and winked at Hermione 'Still a know-it-all, aren't you?' he smirked, but the old sobriquet had lost its sting, as had his manner of pronouncing it.

'I'm afraid I'll never be anything else.' Hermione raised her glass in a mock-toast. 'Your mother is a very lucky woman.'

'So she is. My father doesn't seem to think so, but I daresay he isn't as impartial as one might wish. Mother has mostly been living in Switzerland these past years, and now she's about to move to Russia. Since Father is constitutionally unable even to imagine living anywhere but in Wiltshire…' He selected a crisp and munched it with obvious pleasure. 'But I guess,' he concluded, 'that his reservations might have to do less with Russia than with my mother remarrying.'

'Well, that's quite understandable.' She decided to up the ante. 'But from what I heard, he isn't exactly living like a hermit, either.'

'Been at the tabloids again, have we, Granger?' He caught Sol's eye and nodded; the bartender flicked his wand and another pint floated over to their table.

Hermione grinned at him. 'Listening to gossip, to tell the truth.'

'I wish,' Draco bit out, 'they'd leave him in peace. I ought to be grateful that everybody's so much more interested in his doings than mine, but if this is what it's going to be like…'

'You're hardly as notorious as your father,' Padma rejoined the conversation.

'No, but there's no denying that the Malfoys have always attracted people's interest. And the media's. My father has been divorced for almost five years, and he wants to remarry. So what? What in the name of Circe's swine is so fascinating about that? Look at Granger here, even she has heard the rumours, and she's supposed to have her nose buried in a book all the time!'

If only he knew where exactly her nose had been buried twenty-four hours ago… Hermione turned a smirk into a theatrical moue. 'You're one to talk, Malfoy! You're the bookworm extraordinaire now - you've done nothing but study since you finished school!'

'That's exactly the cue I've been waiting for!' Padma exclaimed. 'You must tell us all about Maestro Segantini – does he really turn mice into elephants as a warm-up exercise?'

ooOoo

After the morning's wind and rain, the weather had improved. It was cold when they left the pub – wizarding pubs kept the same hours as their Muggle counterparts, with the notable difference that Last Orders were usually substantial and kept under a stasis charm – and Draco offered to walk the ladies home instead of Apparating. So they strolled down Vertic Alley, till they reached Padma's house, and then Draco and Hermione retraced their steps in the direction of the pub.

'You've grown into a really decent guy, Malfoy,' Hermione said as they rounded the corner to the street where she lived.

Draco snorted. 'You see, that's the trouble with you Gryffindors. You pay a compliment, but the insult it contains destroys any flattery you might have intended. Telling somebody that he's grown into a nice guy means that, at some point in time, he used to be an unpleasant guy.'

'Well, that's the truth, isn't it?' Hermione smiled and patted his shoulder. Then she pulled her wand out of its holster to deactivate the wards on her door.

'Granger, you're absolutely priceless. I guess I should-'

He didn't finish the sentence because a large owl, which had evidently been perching nearby, swooped down on them.

'Venusta?' he said, voice slightly squeaky with incredulity.

The owl dropped its cargo – a bunch of flowers, complete with attached letter – into Hermione's arms, to alight on the forearm he had reflexively held out and click her beak at him affectionately.

Eyes narrowing, Draco mustered Hermione, who was trying to juggle bouquet and wand. 'Granger, what is the meaning of this?'

Swearing inwardly, Hermione tried to shrug as nonchalantly as possible under the circumstances. 'I honestly have no idea. Somebody obviously sent me flowers…'

'This' – Draco stroked the owl's head – 'is one of our eagle owls, who goes by the name of Venusta. There are exactly two people whose letters she consents to carry. Or flowers, as the case may be. And I know that I didn't send you any flowers. Or letters.'

'Venusta?' Hermione cleared her throat. 'A most fitting name, I'm sure. She's a real beauty.' She'd finally managed to secure the flowers in the crook of her left arm and used her right hand to point her wand at the door. 'Er, well, good night, Draco. It was a lovely evening. Let's do that again soon, shall we?'

'Explain, Granger. Now.'

'Erm, no?' Since Draco didn't seem willing to take no for an answer, she sighed. 'All right, come in and…' When his eyes widened and he did a double take, she followed his line of view. The letter. Of course he recognized his father's handwriting on the envelope. 'Maybe,' she said haltingly, 'this isn't such a bad idea after all. Come to think of it, it might be a blessing in disguise.'

She held the door open for her impromptu guest and gave him a gentle shove when he just stood there, staring after the owl, as she launched herself into the air with a whoosh of her large wings.

ooOoo

Crookshanks' newfound predilection for Malfoy males was rather irritating. Not nearly as irritating, though, as Draco's barely concealed amazement.

'You?' he repeated. 'You and father?'

Hermione gave him a gimlet-eyed glare. 'So much for your vaunted subtlety, Malfoy.'

He closed his mouth rather abruptly and merely raised his hands in a gesture of defeat or maybe, given the intensity of her glower, of protection.

'You were the one who mentioned that he means to remarry,' she said pointedly, because that thought had been nagging her on and off all evening, and also because she enjoyed nettling Draco.

'Yes, but…'

'But what?' Hermione asked sweetly. 'But I'm a Mudblood? But I'm not nearly pretty enough?'

'No!' He shook his head, fringe a-dance. 'No, really, that's not what I meant. What does the letter say?'

'I have no idea. You can probably see for yourself that I haven't opened it yet, and divination has never been my strong suit. No!'

But he'd already summoned the envelope and opened it, a fiendish grin playing around his lips.

'Malfoy! That's… that's absolutely despicable behaviour!'

'Yes, I know. So, what does the old pater have to say? My dear Hermione…'

'Draco, stop it! Stop it this instant!'

He refolded the parchment and shot her a devious look while he shoved it back into its envelope. 'I'll stop, if you give me the complete story.'

'I can't-'

'All right.' His fingers, long, elegant and nimble like his father's, were busy reopening the missive.

'Draco, please listen!'

The urgency in her voice made him raise his head and look at her.

'I can't… I can't tell you the whole story, because it's partly work-related. You're his son, but client confidentiality means I can't talk about this to anybody, not even you.'

'Father is your client?'

'He used to be. Otherwise-' As always, her mouth had been quicker than her brain. Hermione bit her lip.

Draco smirked. 'Otherwise, Granger? Otherwise you wouldn't – what? Date him?'

'I'm not dating him!' she snapped.

Much to her relief, he stopped fiddling with the letter and crossed his arms. 'Confession time, I think. Maybe I can help?'

'I'm not the one who needs help here!'

'Are you implying that father needs my help? To woo you? Now you're laying it on a bit too thick!'

'N-no. No, what I was saying was… Oh, bugger!'

'Look here, Granger.' Draco leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees, scrutinizing her. 'Let me state once and for all that, if my father is courting you, it's his business and his alone. I won't interfere. But something seems to be ailing you, and I'm willing to offer a sympathetic ear. Or a shoulder to cry on, whatever is necessary.'

Hermione eyed him suspiciously. 'You're not _that_ nice, Malfoy. What's in it for you?'

'Let us just say that setting an example of non-interference might work very much in my favour.'

'Are you considering a _mésalliance_, too?'

'Well, I'll be buggered sideways with a rusty pipe! Granger is using French words and considers herself beneath Lucius Malfoy. The end of the world is nigh!'

'You know only too well,' Hermione said, balling her fists because she was on the verge of repeating the rather satisfying experience of their third year, 'that I do not consider myself beneath him!'

'To judge by your sudden blush – very becoming, by the way – the position isn't exactly unknown to you.'

'Draco!'

'And the blush intensifies.' He tossed her the letter, which she almost failed to catch in her state of lethal embarrassment. 'Well, I don't think you need to tell me the story anymore. It's all crystal clear now. For whichever reason, Lucius Malfoy enlists the services of one Hermione Granger, know-it-all and curse breaker. Not only is the lady in question a very clever witch, she also possesses other interesting assets, among which' – he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively – 'a pair of rather magnificent boobs and the kind of well-rounded hips and bouncy arse Mr Malfoy especially likes.'

'Draco!' Hermione wailed.

'Kindly let me finish. The combination of intellectual and physical endowment on both sides leads to attraction and hence carnal intercourse. It takes place after Miss Granger has successfully completed her assignment, of course, because she's a very conscientious kind of person. Correct so far?'

Unable to meet his eyes, Hermione nodded and tried to mask her state of terminal mortification by arranging Crookshanks' tail in a more orderly fashion. The Kneazle didn't protest but eyed her in a way that clearly suggested some doubts as to her sanity.

'And now,' Draco continued, 'comes the interesting bit. Because, as we all know… Or maybe not all of us know, and that's the problem? Anyway, Mr Malfoy, having given in to the demands of his irrepressible libido, does what to him seems logical as well as natural: he proposes marriage to the brilliant and pretty-arsed Miss Granger. The question is: does the lovely Miss Granger know all that much about pureblood habits? Because if she doesn't, the offer of marriage might have been a trifle unexpected and, dare I say, unwelcome? If it wasn't entirely welcome, your assumption about father needing my help would be correct. But you seem impatient to contribute to the conversation, my dear.'

'You talked to your father, didn't you?'

'No, I swear I didn't. It wasn't that difficult to guess, Granger. You're one of the few women I know who'd refuse to marry a man _because_ he's rich. And that's only one of the reasons I can think of why you'd refuse him.'

Hermione sighed. 'All right. You offered your help, and I'm going to accept it. But…' She got up and looked down at him, trying to come to a decision. After a few seconds' silent contemplation, she straightened her shoulders. 'Now I'm going to prepare us some tea. Then you're going to tell me exactly how and why helping me will benefit you. If I'm satisfied with your story, I'll tell you mine. Quid pro quo.'

'First French, now Latin. Will you ever cease to amaze me?

ooOoo

You had to hand it to those Malfoy men. They delivered shocking news with inimitable flair.

Hermione had almost dropped her teacup and, in her attempt to catch it, spilled most of its contents on her jeans. The cleaning and drying spells she had to perform at least gave her time to recuperate. 'Gay?' she said, shoving her wand back into its holster. 'Are you… I mean, are you sure?'

'Are you sure you're hetero?'

'Point taken.' She smiled at him, a little sheepishly. 'Stupid question, wasn't it?'

'I've heard worse, but considering your famed intellect, yes, I suppose it was.'

She nodded pensively and refilled her cup. 'What do you think he'll have to say? I mean, is it going to be a dramatic scene of Shakespearean dimensions, complete with death threats and disowning?'

'Not really.' Draco swirled the tea around in his cup. 'Father doesn't do dramatic. His anger is more of the silent kind, all cold and finely barbed.'

'Oh, that. Yes, that's worse somehow, isn't it? It hurts just as much as the dramatic scene, but lacks the funny aspect drama always has, at least in hindsight.'

A short silence ensued, during which Crookshanks left his witch's side and defected to Draco, curling up on his lap.

'You said that your father means to remarry – do you think he might already know? Or suspect something? Because if you're gay, you're not very likely to continue the family line, and I'm sure he won't let that happen.'

'Granger, try to wrap your mind around the concept that a pureblood, unless he or she's gay, of course, can only have sex if married. Or as good as married, if they're extremely daring and liberal. Since I wouldn't describe my father as particularly liberal, I assume he's simply suffering from withdrawal. Anyway, this rule has existed for hundreds of years, and by now I suppose it's pretty much bred into our genes. Father is only fifty-five, so he certainly doesn't intend to stay celibate for the next hundred years. Ergo, he's got to find himself a wife.'

'I've already understood the concept,' Hermione retorted, a little piqued. 'But try to look at it from my point of view: I won't deny that I think him very attractive, or I wouldn't have shagged him. I'd even go as far as considering the possibility that I might come to, well, care for him, or like him, given enough time. All that doesn't add up to marriage, though. And certainly not because some mouldy, outdated pureblood rule dictates it.'

'Does that mean…' Draco shifted in is chair and was promptly rewarded by five sharp claws digging into his thigh. 'Stop it, you disgusting fur ball. I will' – he lifted the struggling feline and crossed his legs – 'sit in exactly the position I want. There. Just as comfy as before.'

Hermione snorted into her teacup.

'It's not funny, Granger! He could've castrated me with those vicious talons. But back to you and father. I think I got the wrong impression at first. Because I thought you merely wanted to get rid of him. But now I'm beginning to suspect that what troubles you isn't so much the idea of a relationship with him, but the idea that he merely wants you as some kind of institutionalized sex toy. Would it help if he wanted you as an institutionalized sex toy with brains?'

'I'd be more inclined to believe that if he hadn't fucked Heather Parkinson. And Gabrielle Delacour isn't exactly known for her brain power, either.'

'Ah, but you are, and he knows it.'

'And that's supposed to make me feel better?'

Draco sighed. 'Look, Granger, my offer of help still stands. But I think we need to establish what you want first. Let me tell you, though, if you intend to give father the slip, you might want to consider emigrating to Australia. He hates transatlantic Portkey trips and kangaroos.'

'You see?' Hermione exclaimed, jumping up from the couch. 'You see? That's exactly my problem!'

Draco looked up at her, clearly puzzled. 'What? That father abhors those cute marsupials?'

'Don't be so daft, Draco. No, the idea of a man obviously hell-bent on pursuing me, but for all the wrong reasons. That's absolutely infuriating!'

A beatific smirk lit Draco's face. 'You're a romantic, Granger! So that's what it's all about – you'd even deign to get to know the old man, if only you could be sure that he's after you because he lu-hu-hurves you!'

'I'm not stupid, and I'm not seventeen anymore,' Hermione responded primly. 'Love, if it comes at all, comes with time. But if at least I had reason to think that Lucius proposing marriage means a bit more than a dog pissing on a lamppost…'

'You don't want to be marked?'

'I can see you sniggering, Malfoy!' She stood before him, arms crossed and hair fairly crackling with indignation. 'Are you happy now? I'm just as insecure as the next girl, despite my so-called famed intellect.'

'That makes you rather likeable, if you ask me. If you were completely self-assured, you'd be too scary by half. But take my advice: don't give father reason to suspect you're insecure. Or at least not at this stage. Later on, when you're nicely settled, you may give him insecurity in homeopathic doses, to spur him on to deeds of manliness and chivalry.'

Hermione's jaw dropped. 'Draco, I think you're getting ahead of yourself. I don't really know the man – we've had nothing more than a few hours' conversation, followed by… Oh, well. Anyway, I don't even know if he's a man I want a relationship with.'

'Yes, but that's not the point, is it? The point is that you want to be sure, or as sure as you can be, that it's more than just the dictate of lust and pureblood rules on his side, so you may safely explore your feelings. Am I right, or am I right?'

'Well, yes,' she conceded.

'I'm exceedingly glad we've established that. So we'll have to make sure, won't we?'

'Yes, but… You can't very well do the big Legilimens act on him.'

Suddenly very smug, Draco pushed back his fringe. 'Granger, dear girl, even if I had sufficiently big balls of steel to try and read my father's mind, and I assure you I don't, you wouldn't believe me anyway. You are the sort of person who only believes what they see. Ergo' – he made a florid gesture – 'we'll have to make you see.'

'See? Draco, I absolutely and categorically refuse to sneak around Malfoy Manor under a disillusionment spell, waiting for your father to confess his undying affection for me to his favourite Ming vase! Thou vase, oh vase, oh sweet and lovely vase, show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eye – I somehow don't think he'd do that.'

'He'd never wish his favourite Ming vase to be chinked. Don't be silly. There won't be any sneaking. Just sneakiness. The old and time-honed method of making a man declare his love is, of course, to-'

'Stop right there! You're not going to make me participate in some harebrained jealousy scheme. That's just ridiculous!'

'Is it?' The look he gave her was both calculating and innocent, and Hermione really wanted to know how he did it. 'Because, you see, we look very much alike. Only I'm over twenty years younger… don't you think that'd do the trick? And once we've got him all burning with jealousy and spouting declarations of love, won't he be only too happy to discover that I'm not really a threat?'

'You're evil, Malfoy,' was all she could say.

'Ah, but you like it. I can see the gleam in your eyes.'

'It's completely insane.'

'That's the beauty of it, Granger. It's just the kind of insane that might work.'


	5. Chapter 5

PART V

_My dear Hermione,_

_May I request the honour of your company tomorrow night, for dinner at Malfoy Manor?_

_Much as I esteem and admire the quick and expedient solution you devised for my recent problem, I am, however, not quite ready to let the offender escape unpunished. Your thoughts on the matter of apprehending the culprit would be very much appreciated._

_I would also like to talk to you about my Runes project._

_If 7.30 p.m. is convenient for you, no further response will be needed. Please accept the attached portkey as a token of my devotion to you._

_Most sincerely yours,_

_Lucius Malfoy_

'I'm not surprised it took him three days to compose this carefully balanced mix between slobbering adoration and businesslike crispness,' Draco said after perusing the letter. 'But I like the idea of sending a woman a piece of jewellery as a Portkey. Don't look so distressed, Granger, it's just a bracelet, not an engagement ring. And I tested it for love jinxes. Relax, for heaven's sake! Have a drink.'

'I don't really drink.' Hermione picked up the parchment and stared at Lucius's handwriting. She quite liked the loops of his g's… Tightening the leash on her unruly mind, she reminded herself that this was about the one hundred and twenty-seventh time she stared at the letter, and Lucius's florid g's did nothing to make her feel less frantic.

'Have an imaginary drink, then.' He got up, patted her back and went over to a side table that was bristling with bottles. 'Whisky or brandy?'

'I really shouldn't… Oh well. A gin-and-tonic, please. Lots of lime.'

'Zesty to the core, I see.' He prepared the drinks and returned to the couch. Raising his glass to her, he scrutinized her for a while and then said, 'Correct me if I'm wrong, Granger, but this looks like more than a simple case of stage nerves.'

Hermione sighed. Venusta, the owl whose untimely arrival had triggered this whole Comedy of Errors on Sunday night, had delivered the invitation two hours ago, when she'd returned home from work. The day had been unusually busy; Lucius had obviously made good on his promise of recommending her, and they'd had ten customers, as many as they'd had in an average week during the three months since the agency had opened its doors. She'd arrived at her flat, mind still full of the plans she'd been discussing with Padma. Then the owl had shown up on her window sill, and instead of just sending the bird back with its letter unopened, she'd offered Venusta an owl treat and unfastened the envelope from her leg.

Loath though she was to admit it, she'd panicked.

It was bad enough that she'd agreed to participate in Draco's gleeful scheming, although she still wasn't quite sure she'd actually be able to play her part convincingly. And now Lucius, no Malfoy, oh what the heck, Lucius, wanted her to help him find the person who'd turned him into a woman.

It had all been too good to be true, she'd known it! Yes, she'd been immensely glad when he hadn't mentioned the matter of pursuit and punishment anymore, and she'd even happily embraced the illusion that he'd just let the whole unpleasant business go, but had she ever truly believed it? No, she certainly hadn't.

And now he required her help. This meant, of course, that she'd have to deceive him doubly: firstly concerning her alleged interest in Draco, for Draco's sake (although he had almost convinced her it was for her own, too), and secondly concerning Ginny's involvement, for everybody's sake. Refusing the invitation was out of the question; at least, if she pretended to assist him, she'd know what he was doing. Maybe she'd even be able to steer him subtly away from his desire for revenge.

When the sheer audacity of what she was going to let herself in for had dawned on her, she'd immediately Floo'ed Draco, her newly (and mostly self-) appointed expert in all things Lucius. Of course the stupid sod hadn't been at home, and when he'd finally answered her increasingly frantic calls after almost two hours and asked her to come over to his place, she'd already turned into a shivering wreck. Stage nerves – if only it was as simple as that!

After a few sips of the rather stiff gin-and-tonic, she decided to tell Draco the truth, or at least most of it. He was her ally after all, and she knew herself sufficiently well to be sure she wouldn't be able to mislead both him and his father.

'It's stage nerves all right,' she said. 'But, erm, double stage nerves, in a manner of speaking. Because, you see, I know exactly who caused the problem your father is referring to, and there's no way I can tell him.'

Intrigued, Draco leaned forward. 'Really? Who did it? And what did they do to him?'

'I'd prefer not to tell you, either.'

'You wound me, Granger. You wound me deeply.' He hung his head and put a hand over his heart. 'For 'tis certain now, the lady doth distrust me.'

'I do trust you, generally. But not in this specific case. Because, you see, if I fail to find the culprit, or to give Lucius any useful hints, and you enter the scene and tip him off, won't that score you lots of points? Just enough, for example, to miraculously gain his forgiveness when you give him the news about being gay?'

'I hadn't yet thought of that,' Draco said, giving her a look of reluctant admiration. 'Of course it would be brilliant. Not that I'd do it,' he added hastily.

'I'm sure you wouldn't, but I don't want to tempt you.'

He leaned back, laughing. 'Granger, if you ever consent to marry my father, you'll make one of the most fearsome couples since Merlin and Nimue.'

'Thanks for the compliment. But I'd be glad if we could concentrate on my problem.'

'Oh, that's easy.' He took her empty glass and went to refresh their drinks. 'If, or rather when, the subject comes up, you'll just have to drag him off to bed.'

'Draco, really…'

'Just think of the benefits. You get to shag him, he won't be too eager to talk, and when in the, erm, throes of ecstasy, you shout "Yes, Draco, yes!" It's the perfect solution!'

ooOoo

The grand total of the rooms she'd seen at Malfoy Manor was now four: the salon she didn't want to think about (once), Lucius's study (once), the small (ha!ha!) dining room (once) and the master bedroom (twice, not counting the, erm, three times she'd revisited her memories of last Saturday night).

Hermione liked the bedroom. It was spacious and sparsely but tastefully furnished, decorated in shades of blue, ranging from the very light azure of the ceiling and walls to the almost-black inky blue of the bed curtains and carpet. The fireplace was an intricately carved masterpiece of finely-grained Brazilian Acqua Marina marble.

She also liked the bed, an enormous, ebony four-poster, and its high headboard inlaid with a delicate mother-of-pearl pattern of leaves and flowers. Considering the very pleasurable activities she'd indulged in the bed, Hermione presumed that her partiality to this piece of furniture might owe to more than just aesthetic appreciation.

Lucius was on his back next to her, chest rising and falling with the rhythm of his still-accelerated breathing.

She'd successfully manoeuvred him upstairs and into the bedroom once he'd broached the subject of apprehending the miscreant who'd cursed him. It was fortunate that he'd done so after dessert, when they'd already finished their coffee, or her sudden interest in the contents of his trousers might have seemed a tad conspicuous.

The ensuing two hours had been most rewarding, and now she thought it was time to give Draco's advice a try. Not exactly as he'd intended her to, but when she'd climaxed – no, make that _whenever_ she'd climaxed – rational thought had abandoned her. Besides, where was the point in calling Lucius by his son's name while he still had any strength left? Making him jealous, if such a thing was even possible, was all right, but depriving herself of another perfectly good orgasm just didn't make sense.

Her heart, too, had been racing. It had calmed down somewhat by now, and she wiped a trickle of cooling sweat off her temple before rolling over and resting her head on the slightly clammy skin of Lucius's shoulder.

'You're a fantastic lover, Draco,' she said.

His hand, which had been stroking her upper arm, suddenly tightened, and she could almost feel tiny blood vessels bursting under his fingertips, when they pressed into the delicate tissue.

'I beg your pardon?' he growled.

'I said you're a fantastic lover. It's a compliment, you know, and a very sincere one.' Bending her head, she kissed his forearm; the muscles and tendons were trembling with the effort. 'You're hurting me, Lucius. What's the matter?'

Their eyes met, and for a mere second she felt his mind brush hers. She'd been prepared for the invasion; images of their lovemaking were at the forefront of her thoughts, and a fleeting flicker or two of Draco's face.

His face was impassive, betraying nothing. 'I am sorry, Hermione. It seems I don't know my own strength.'

A caress, a trickle of wandless magic across her skin, and the incipient bruises were gone.

'Last time we met,' he said after a while, 'you said something about meaningless sex. Is it still meaningless to you?'

How on earth… Hermione busied herself with her hair, in order to distract from the surprise that must be clearly showing on her face.

She was, of course, aware that Draco knew his father a good deal better than she did. When she'd consented, however, to play a part in his bizarre scheme of making Lucius believe his son was his rival, it had been helplessness, not confidence, that motivated her. She'd been at a total loss, unsure what to do about the emotional mess she'd found herself in, and moreover she'd been completely taken aback by how much she actually liked Draco.

Whatever the current state of their father-son relationship, Hermione just couldn't fathom a Lucius Malfoy who hugged his son, patted his back and told him that his darling boy's happiness was the only thing that mattered to him. A certain amount of friction, if not an outright fight, between the two men seemed inevitable.

Regardless of his feelings or lack thereof, Lucius was bound by honour or duty, or whichever antiquated pureblood notion it might be, to marry her, and thus likely to react most unfavourably to a possible rival. Agreeing to stage Draco as a rival first and later on to reveal that he wasn't had therefore made a certain amount of sense: there was a slim chance it might help Draco, and since she didn't know what to do about Lucius, trying to introduce him to the green-eyed monster had been as good a starting point as any.

What she'd not been prepared for was his question, though. His tone of voice seemed to indicate more than just wounded male pride. Or was this just wishful thinking? And why "wishful" – did she really want Lucius Malfoy to genuinely care for her?

Hermione decided to temporize. 'Why is that so important to you?'

'Because, my dear' – he kissed the top of her head and pulled the duvet up to cover them both – 'I intend to marry you. As you well know.'

The intimacy of the gesture, both the kiss and wrapping them up in a soft cocoon of warmth and comfort, made her stomach flutter. Pillow talk was something she'd been missing a lot more than sex. The combination of both was heady and, Hermione reminded herself, not conducive to objectivity. Still, why forego the pleasure of murmuring to each other while carefully stoking the embers of lust, if it also offered her the possibility to garner information?

'I haven't forgotten.' She gently scraped her thumbnail over a flat nipple, smiling at his hum of pleasure. 'But frankly, I don't see why you're being so insistent about it. I've read up on pureblood traditions, because frankly I didn't know much about them. Even so, I honestly don't understand why we can't just have sex from time to time, if we so choose. I'm taking my contraceptive potion, and I'm sure you're using some potion or spell as well, so you don't have to worry about the possibility of fathering an illegitimate child. And, as far as I can see, avoiding illegitimate children is the only purpose of this no-sex-without-marriage rule. It makes sense in its historical context, but certainly not in the twenty-first century – unplanned pregnancies are a thing of the past.'

Lucius raised her arm to his lips and treated the crook of her elbow to kisses intermingled with gentle bites. 'Your trust in the effectiveness of spells and potions,' he said, moving his lips and teeth slowly towards her wrist, 'is admirable. They've been known to fail, though.'

'Nonsense!'

'If I showed you Narcissa's and my marriage certificate, you'd probably be surprised to detect that Draco was born only five months after the wedding. It isn't common knowledge. In fact even Draco doesn't know.' His mouth moved slowly upwards over the sensitive underside of her upper arm.

Her breathing became faster as his tongue moved over tender skin in hot arabesques. 'What? Well, that must've been the scandal of the century! Are you implying that you were both protected?'

'Of course we were.' He smirked down at her. 'Because, you see, we weren't meant to get married.'

Dumbstruck, Hermione raised herself on one elbow. 'You weren't – what on earth happened?'

He pushed her onto her back and leaned over her. 'I don't know what you're expecting, but' – he slid a leg between hers and gently cupped a breast – 'it's not a tragic story of broken hearts and soul mates torn asunder.'

'I'd like to hear it all the same,' she replied, rubbing herself against his thigh.

'Maybe next time.' Lucius smiled down at her and replaced his thigh with his hand. 'Right now, I can think of more pleasant things to do than talking.'

ooOoo

When Venusta dropped off another letter on Friday (the portkey it contained was the necklace matching the bracelet) which invited her to champagne and canapés on Sunday afternoon at the Manor, followed by Mozart's "Don Giovanni" at Covent Garden and supper at La Grenouille in Greenwich, Hermione came to the conclusion that it was time to have a meeting with both her allies.

She knew that Ginny and Draco had met at some international conference a couple of years ago, and that, afterwards, the younger Malfoy had been invited twice to dinner at Godric's Hollow. Hermione had been invited, too, as a matter of fact, but both times hadn't been able to swap shifts – she hadn't been popular with her co-workers, and refusing to trade with her and thus depriving her of something she clearly wanted had been an effective, if rather cheap way of getting back at her.

From what the two had told her, however, she had garnered the impression that Harry and his former nemesis had got on rather well, except for a bit of light bickering, and that Ginny was quite fond of Draco.

They'd both agreed to come to Hermione's place on Saturday evening; Ginny, whose pregnancy caused her to be almost permanently hungry, had consented only on condition that Hermione prepare sufficient quantities of her Quiche Lorraine. Draco had promised to bring the wine. As he was to spend the afternoon chez Lucius, Hermione entertained high hopes of getting to taste some exceptional vintages. Ginny had announced that she'd provide dessert in the guise of her infamous chocolate cake, which was more or less manslaughter in edible, highly addictive form.

Ginny was the first to arrive. Since Floo travel might have damaged the cake, she Apparated into Hermione's living room. 'Mmh,' she said, sniffing the air, 'you've made the Quiche! I've been drooling for hours.'

The two women went into the kitchen, where Hermione stored the cake in the ice box and pretended not to notice her friend stealing a sliver of Quiche.

'So Draco's gay,' Ginny stated, chewing ecstatically. 'And he hasn't told his father. You know' – she poured herself a glass of mineral water from the bottle Hermione held out for her – 'I don't envy him. Even with a somewhat changed attitude towards purity of blood etcetera, Malfoy will want to see the family name continued. Having a son who's unlikely to produce an heir won't make him happy.'

'Serves him right for being so insufferably old-fashioned,' Hermione muttered.

'Sounds like marriage was being discussed on Thursday evening,' Ginny said.

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'It was. And he told me – but I'd say we wait for Draco. He ought to be here…' She was interrupted by the doorbell.

'Ten points to Slytherin for punctuality,' she greeted Draco.

'Never let it be said that father didn't teach me one or two useful things, too, among all the crap he tried to make me believe.' He kissed her cheek and extracted a miniature crate from his pocket. 'The white is already chilled, and I suggest that we open the red now, so it can breathe. Hi Gin! I have to find a way to get pregnant, if that's what it does for one's looks.'

'You'll love the morning sickness and the aching boobs.' Ginny rose on tiptoes and got kissed as well. 'So, I hear you're gay.'

'And there go all your secret hopes of getting your hands on my perfect body.'

'You do know what "projection" means, don't you?'

Smiling to herself at their bantering, Hermione summoned the Quiche and wine glasses from the kitchen, and the three sat down to sample the delicacies. The wine Draco had contributed was excellent – a crisp, fruity Sauvignon Blanc – and Ginny decided that a few sips wouldn't harm the youngest Potter.

Draco helped himself to a second slice of Quiche and gave Hermione a nod of appreciation. 'This is really good, Granger.' He smirked diabolically. 'Wait till I tell father that you can cook as well.'

'Why would he care?' Hermione said and stuck out her tongue at him. 'He's got house elves to do the cooking. Speaking of Lucius, I've got news.'

'So have I.' Draco winked at her. 'And I bet that mine is a lot more sensational.'

Ginny raised a hand. 'Be good, children. No quarrelling. Hermione comes first, as ladies always do – don't smirk, Draco – and I'll decide whose news is more interesting.'

'Did you come first, Granger?'

'Oh shut up, Malfoy!'

Another bottle of Sauvignon Blanc was opened, and Hermione told the others about Draco's untimely birth. 'He didn't tell me whom your mother was supposed to marry,' she concluded. 'But it certainly wasn't him. You don't mind, do you?' she asked belatedly. Curse her tongue that was always quicker than her brain – interesting though the story was, Draco might not be quite comfortable with the knowledge.

'Not at all,' he replied pensively. 'It certainly explains a lot. Although… I'm not quite sure it was mother, or rather only my mother who was supposed to marry somebody else.'

'Wicked,' Ginny breathed. 'So you think your father, too, was engaged to somebody else?'

'I'm pretty sure he was. Because…' Draco glanced at them both in turn, looking rather embarrassed. 'You see, I used to eavesdrop on my parents rather shamelessly. I mean, being an only child, I didn't have any siblings to fill me in on what had happened while I'd been away at school. So I spent most of the holidays with my ear glued to some door or wall.'

Hermione smiled and reached over to squeeze his hand. 'I remember doing the same. I suppose my parents were more willing to share than yours, but still, one had to catch up during the hols. So what did you overhear?'

'I remember a particular conversation, a rather… well, a heated argument rather, about Aunt Bellatrix. I'd prefer not to relate the details – as I said, it was quite unpleasant – but given what you just told me, I think she might have been the woman the family had intended him to marry.'

The two women exchanged a glance.

'Well, I think you ought to thank both your parents on your knees for their youthful indiscretions,' Ginny said. 'Because, frankly, the mind boggles at the mere thought of what you might have become, had Bellatrix been your mother.'

'Uh-huh.' Draco drank his wine down in one gulp and refilled his glass. 'And the hair colour would have been the least of my worries, I guess. Anyway,' he said, perking up, 'this extraordinary piece of news has also answered another question that has been bugging me for weeks.'

'Are you going to share?' Hermione asked, when he had remained silent for a good thirty seconds, eyes fixed on Crookshanks who was busy cleaning his paws.

'What? Oh, yes, of course.' He grinned, a little sheepishly. 'It's something Sergey, my mother's fiancé, said when we toasted their engagement. Something about thirty years of yearning, which didn't seem to make much sense at the time. Now it does, of course – his father, Mikhail Pletnev, is married to Pansy's aunt on her father's side. The whole family lives in England, and Sergey and his siblings were all born here, but he went back to Russia in the early eighties and started making his millions by producing samovars. If he and mother had been destined for each other, it makes sense that he would have left England after she got married to Father.'

'But Lucius said it wasn't some kind of tragic love story,' Hermione objected.

'I don't know about Mother, but it certainly was for Sergey. As for Aunt Bellatrix… well, the less said, the better. She was pretty mad even back then, before they sent her to Azkaban, or so I've heard. I doubt Father's feelings for her went any further than a desire to have her consigned to the loony bin, preferably two continents away.'

The three of them pondered this for a while.

'I'm not quite sure,' Hermione said into the silence, 'but I think I remember that Sergey Pletnev's wife died a short time before your parents got divorced. Could it be… I mean, would your mother have…' She bit her lip and tried to gauge Draco's reaction.

'I'm sure she would've left father, if she'd been in love with Sergey all that time. And considering that since the war they practically lived separate lives under the same roof, he would have let her go…'

'That doesn't make sense,' Ginny butted in. 'If Narcissa was so much in love with that Sergey guy, why on earth would she have slept with your father?'

Draco shrugged. 'Lovers' tiff? I honestly have no idea, but I'm sure Hermione is going to find out. Aren't you, dear? Father seems to be quite talkative when he's with you – I suppose you literally shagged that bit of information out of him?'

'Well, she didn't know it was there in the first place,' Ginny said reasonably.

'No, I didn't, and it came up in a different context.'

'May I ask which?' Draco was arranging the crumbs on his plate into a neat triangle and shot her a sideways look. 'Marriage seems to have been involved, methinks.'

'It, erm, yes. Basically I was asking him why we couldn't just have sex and disregard that whole engagement nonsense.'

'That's a big step forward,' Ginny said, trying hard to appear serious. 'I mean, you went from "I have nothing to say to you, so bugger off" last Sunday to "Let's have sex and not get married" on Thursday. He must have been so gratified.'

'You,' Hermione said, 'are in this just for the entertainment value.' She threw a crumpled paper napkin at Ginny, who ducked it, laughing.

'I beg to differ.' Draco produced a few sheets of parchment from his pocket. 'Ginny is in it for a completely different reason, aren't you, Gin? And I warn you, "I don't know what you're talking about" is as good as a confession in my book.'

Her expression stubborn and eyes glittering, Ginny crossed her arms. 'Well, I don't.'

'This' – Draco waved the parchments – 'would be my interesting and sensational bit of news. As you know, father had invited me to spend today at the Manor with him. We had lunch, and when we'd just retired to his study to talk about some matters of business, he was called away – the house elves at one of our French estates had obviously threatened with strike… something about the colour of their liveries, I think, or was it the quality of their packed lunches? Something to do with liver, or with liveries… Well, anyway, he had to Apparate to France, because a strike, when the grape harvest is in full swing, would be nothing short of a catastrophe.

'So I was there, in his study. I'd eaten a lot at lunch – you know the feeling, when you're a bit somnolent and not really able to do anything but digest. I might even have dozed off for a few seconds, and when I opened my eyes, I spotted something… unusual.'

'You're good,' Ginny said.

He bowed slightly. 'Thank you.'

'Well, what _did_ you see?' Hermione asked impatiently. 'It can't have been these parchments, because his study is full of them. They're definitely not unusual.'

Draco refilled his glass in a maddeningly casual manner and leaned back. 'I saw a book.'

'A book.' Hermione glared at him. 'Draco, the study is brimming with books, practically overflowing!'

'Since you seem to know it so well,' Draco quipped, 'tell me: what colour are the books?'

She shrugged. 'The usual. Mostly tan, and I remember a few dark blue ones, probably also dark red.'

'No pink?'

'Pink? Certainly not. Are you saying… Was there a pink book in your father's study?

He nodded triumphantly. 'There was. And that, even Ginny will have to agree, is unusual.'

Ginny shrugged noncommittally. She was beginning to look decidedly uncomfortable.

'Well?' Hermione leaned over to poke his arm. 'What was it? Come on, Malfoy, don't be so revoltingly smug!'

'It was a first edition of "_Happiness on Both Sides: Arithmantic Equations for Finding Your Soul Mate_", by Haruspex Tinnywiddle. Tyler & Westbottom, Liverpool, 1874, and extremely rare, in case you're interested.'

'And…' Hermione, aware that she was croaking, drank a few sips of wine. 'And these' – she pointed at the parchments – 'would be…' She downed the rest of the wine.

'These were in the book and would, indeed, be the equations father ran. I suppose I don't need to tell you about the result.'

She shook her head. 'Is it, uh, unequivocal?' she asked, her voice small.

'Unless he means to get married to one Jacinta de Escobar y Brujo, aged ninety-six and living in a small village near Santiago de Chile, yes, you could say it is.'

'Did you have a look at them?' Hermione said, hope blossoming again. 'Because, you know, Arithmancy is a rather difficult subject, and even though he seems to be quite good with Runes, Lucius might still be a completely lousy Arithmancer.'

Draco winked at her. 'They're perfect. I duplicated the sheets and put them back into the book, needless to mention. These are the copies – I looked over them before coming here. You can have them, of course. But…' He glanced at Ginny, who had been rather uncharacteristically silent. 'Apart from the result, what I found to be of interest was this annotation.' He got up and went over to crouch next to Hermione's chair. 'Look at this, here at the bottom of page two. What do you make of it?'

The tip of his finger came to rest next to a few hastily scribbled letters and numbers.

'G.P./G.H., 5/8, 02.30, A.P. 1237' Hermione read out aloud. 'That's not Arithmancy.'

'No, it isn't,' Draco confirmed. 'But I'm sure a clever girl like you can figure it out in no time.' He stood and went back to his chair. 'Or what do you think, Ginny?'

The look that passed between the two was so heavy with meaning that even Hermione, in her state of baffled surprise – or was it gratification? She had no idea – caught on to it. 'What's the matter with you two? Ginny, you're looking as if you're about to be guillotined!'

'That might be preferable,' Ginny said, her voice tight.

'Don't be silly! Ginny Potter fears nothing… and… nobody…' She looked down at the parchment. 'G.P.? That wouldn't be… And G.H. – Godric's Hollow! Apparition Point 1237!' The sheets fluttered to the floor. 'I think I ought to get the red wine,' she said, rising from her chair. 'And the guillotine, just to be on the safe side.'

ooOoo

When she felt that she'd calmed down sufficiently, Hermione returned to the living room with the chocolate cake, wine bottles and glasses in tow. Ginny was curled up in Draco's lap, on the couch, and sobbing into his shoulder.

She quickly deposited everything on the table and hurried to kneel next to the two. 'Ginny,' she said urgently, 'Ginny, listen, let's talk about this. If Lucius harmed you in any way, I swear I-'

'No!' Ginny wailed. 'He didn't, he just…' The rest of the sentence was lost in muffled, rather snotty-sounding sobs.

Hermione sighed and summoned a box of Kleenex, which she held out to Draco. 'You made her cry,' she stated, 'now you make her stop.'

'I wish I could – my right shoulder is completely soaked through,' he snapped. But he rubbed Ginny's back and murmured into her ear, until she finally consented to loosen her death grip on him and blow her nose.

'Here,' Hermione said. 'Have some water. And then you may have one inch of red wine, and as much chocolate cake as you want, and then we're going to talk about this like the adults we are. You said that Lucius didn't hurt you, and I know you would never do anything to hurt me, well at least not intentionally, so it can't be all that bad.'

Seeing Ginny in this state of desperation had given Hermione quite a shock. Ginny never cried – if something angered or hurt her, she usually resorted to hexes. A Ginny in tears was rather alarming, and the sight of her had put a damper on Hermione's fury. Then she remembered that the hormone cocktail that came with a pregnancy often made women more prone to crying, but by then her concern had already become much stronger than her resentment, and so she merely waited for her friend to calm down sufficiently to talk.

While Ginny's hiccups slowly subsided, Hermione kept observing Draco. She would've liked to be angry at him, but he was looking a little forlorn and a little boyish, and he was comforting Ginny – somehow she couldn't work up the right kind of indignation. True, he might've handled this a little more delicately, not to mention with a good deal less smugness, but in the end… If Ginny's involvement in the whole Lucius business had never come out, it would still have been there, between them, and who knew how it might have secretly eaten away at their friendship. And as for the Arithmancy bit, well, it was better to know what was at the root of Lucius's sudden interest in her.

She'd been completely lost in her thoughts and jumped when a hand touched her arm.

'I'm sorry,' Ginny said, giving her a pleading look out of swollen, blood-shot eyes. 'I didn't mean to…' Tears welled up again.

Hermione bent over to hug her and kiss her hot, moist cheek. 'It's all right, Ginny. I won't say that I forgive you right away, because I'd like to know first what exactly I'm forgiving you for, but rest assured that I will. Don't stare at us like this, Draco!' she snapped.

'Sorry.' His grin didn't exactly make the apology more believable. 'It's just the sight of two women snogging…' He shrugged.

At least he'd made Ginny laugh.

'You're a monster, Draco,' the redhead said, while she retired to the couch, still chuckling.

All Hermione could do was shake her head. Then Draco handed her a piece of chocolate cake, and she dug into it. 'All right,' she said after two very satisfying bites, 'and now I'd like to hear the full story.'

'As would I,' Draco agreed. 'Because this' – he gestured at the parchments on the floor – 'merely says that father visited you on 5 August, at 2.30.'

Ginny nodded. 'He did. But maybe' – she gave Hermione a tentative smile – 'I ought to give you a bit of background. Last Saturday, I told you I'd made my peace with Lucius, and that was the truth.' She took a sip from the inch of red wine Hermione had allowed her. 'I never told you – well, as a matter of fact I never told anybody, not even Harry. When we'd decided to try for a baby, I began to have nightmares. Really horrible dreams of Tom Riddle, as he was in the diary, and of Voldemort as I'd seen him at the battle… It got worse and worse, until I was afraid of going to sleep.'

'I'm sorry,' Draco muttered. 'I still…I mean sometimes, I dream about the year he stayed at the Manor…' He shuddered.

The shift in the collective mood was palpable. Before, they'd been young people – a bit careless, a bit gossipy and even sentimental – but now war had sat down in their midst and rasped its icy-cold hands across their hearts. It was an experience they had in common, even though they'd been on different sides. They all bore the scars. They'd all been damaged, taken apart, and could never again be whole the way others could.

'Why didn't you tell Harry?' Hermione asked quietly.

But in her heart she knew.

What they'd lived through, every single of them, whether as junior Death Eater, on the run or as a member of the resistance movement at Hogwarts, wasn't something you could share. It was paradoxical, because the claws that had scarred them were the same. The traces they'd left on each of them, though, were so different… That was why they could talk about it, but never really understand each other. The one thing they had in common was the thing that made them feel most lonely.

'Because… It's difficult to explain. On the one hand, I felt that it wasn't something he could help me with. I know it's a horrible thing to say about my own husband, but… The history, I mean his personal history with Voldemort, was different, because in the end he beat him. I never beat Tom Riddle – it was Harry who destroyed the diary, and Harry who cast the final spell, and…' She swallowed and bit her lip. 'And mum didn't even give me the opportunity to kill Bellatrix,' she ground out, angrily wiping away the fresh tears.

'It was your fight,' Hermione said. 'And if you didn't win it now, you felt you would have lost forever.'

'Yes. And on the other hand, there was Draco. After he and Harry had met, and they'd put their differences to rest, finally, after so many years… I just didn't want the gap to reopen again, just because Draco is Lucius's son.'

She found herself engulfed in a spontaneous hug. 'Thanks,' Draco said and kissed the tip of her nose. 'You're a great girl, Ginny Potter.'

His forehead remained resting against hers for a brief moment. Averting her eyes from the two of them, Hermione pretended a sudden interest in the traces of chocolate cream on her plate.

'So,' Ginny continued, 'I needed to fight this, and I needed to talk to the one person I felt could be of assistance. The man who'd given me the diary in the first place, who'd understand because he, too, had been manipulated by Voldemort.'

'You've got balls,' Draco said, clearly awed.

'My happiness depended on it,' Ginny said simply. 'I wanted to have a baby, and I wanted to be happy with Harry. I'd do anything for that. And' – she grinned at Draco – 'it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought it might be. Lucius was… well, not only did he consent to see me right away, immediately after he'd received my owl, he was, well, kind. And he understood. We talked for a long time that day, and I went to see him twice a week for the following month – Hermione's therapy after the war had given me an idea, and so I asked him to visit my memories with me.'

'And he did?' Hermione asked, breathless.

'Yes, he did. I'd seen him after the Battle of Hogwarts, but he was a great deal more shaken after we'd gone through my memories. He said… well, that's between him and me. Anyway, we never lost contact afterwards, even though I didn't tell Harry about it. I thought we'd take it step by step, first Draco, and maybe, one day, Lucius. That's what we all fought for, isn't it? Reconciliation.'

'I have to repeat what Draco said: You're a great girl, Ginny. The greatest I know.'

'Oh, tosh. Don't look at me like that, or I'll die from sheer embarrassment.'

'Have another piece of cake,' Draco said genially. 'So, am I right in assuming that, once father had done his bit of Arithmancy – and who could blame him, after two failed engagements – he didn't know how to go about wooing Hermione and asked for your help?'

'Ekshactly,' Ginny said thickly. She swallowed the bite and continued, 'I was at least as surprised as he was by the result of his calculations. But he'd done them correctly, and so I consented to lend him a hand. Of course I had to think of a good cover story for Harry, to explain why I suddenly felt this need to curse Lucius-'

'Curse father?' Draco interrupted her. 'I don't think I understand.'

Saying a silent good-bye to client confidentiality, Hermione explained about Lucius's visit at the agency and what she'd seen in the Pensieve. 'So I went to see Ginny,' she concluded.

'And I told her the story Lucius and I had come up with for Harry's sake: that it was the perfect way to help Hermione get more clients.'

'I _knew_ something was fishy about that story!' Hermione exclaimed.

'Yes, but you didn't know what,' she retorted. 'And then your meeting at Malfoy Manor went tits up, and when I'd managed to convince you both you had to apologize, and you'd finally got into bed, Lucius, that idiot, had to bring up that engagement business. I thought I'd kill him. It's not _that_ funny, Draco!'

Draco was laughing so hard that tears were running down his face. 'It's absolutely priceless,' he panted. 'He must've ejaculated most of his brain to say something that stupid.'

Hermione waited till he had somewhat calmed down. 'But the fact remains,' she said, 'that he's not after me because he's interested in me. Being the result of an Arithmantic equation is only slightly more flattering than being wooed because of some antiquated pureblood notion.'

'Oh, he likes you all right,' Ginny said. 'We met the day after he'd first gone to the agency, and he went on and on about how attractive and clever you were. You'd given him quite the shock with that insulating device of yours, but otherwise he was full of praise.'

'He made me take off my shoes and stockings,' Hermione growled.

'But I assure you,' Ginny said, the spark of mischief again alive in her eyes, 'that he didn't say a word about your fur- ' A glare from Hermione silenced her.

'What I don't understand,' Hermione said, 'is that he wrote in his letter – not the one for tomorrow, the last one – why he even mentioned anything about apprehending the culprit.'

'I'm afraid that was my doing,' Ginny said. 'You might have been glad he didn't bring it up, but I was sure you weren't going to buy it in the long run.'

'That's right,' Hermione conceded reluctantly. 'But I had to go all Mata Hari on him, in order to distract him.'

Ginny batted her eyelids. 'Oh, that must've been so horrible for you!'

Draco, who had been silently staring into his wineglass, snapped back to attention when a sofa cushion whizzed past his nose. 'As I see it,' he said, 'this evening of revelations is a godsend. Because now my respected sire is up against the three of us, and planting the seed of jealousy should be child's play.'

'Jealousy?' Ginny shook her head. 'How does jealousy come into this?'

'Granger wants proof of Father's undying affection.'

'Oh, shut up!'

'And,' he continued, heedless of Hermione's attempts to shush him, 'I thought that bringing a possible rival into the game might be just the thing to make him confess. The rival being my good self, of course.'

'You? But you're…'

'Yes, I know I'm gay. But father doesn't know that. So I convinced Granger to – did you call him Draco in the throes of ecstasy, by the way?'

'No,' Hermione said gruffly. 'I did it afterwards.'

'And? He was perfectly amiable today, so I thought you might have lost your nerve.'

'He didn't seem overjoyed, but didn't comment on it. Not directly, anyway.'

'Ha!' Draco punched the air. 'Excellent! If you hadn't thoroughly rattled him, he would have said something, believe me. Anyway,' he said, turning to Ginny, 'now that you're in on the game, you could drop a hint or two as well, what do you think?'

Ginny snorted. 'I could, but do you really want to risk it? If he likes Hermione as much as I think he does, he won't take kindly to you being his rival.'

'That's what makes my little scheme so perfect. All we need is for my father to declare his feelings to Hermione, and when he's done that, I'm going to tell him I'm gay. The joy of not having a rival is bound to outweigh his disappointment, especially as he and Hermione can have as many heirs as they want.'

'Oh, good! First I'm a lamppost, and now I'm a brood mare!'

'Lamppost?' Ginny echoed.

'Private joke. Don't be so stubborn, Granger. Come on, have another glass of wine, and let's plot father's downfall.'


	6. Chapter 6

PART VI

It was indeed a lucky coincidence, Hermione thought while eyeing herself in the mirror of La Grenouille's powder room, that the sister of her business-partner-to-be was one of England's up-and-coming young designers. Parvati had spent the better part of Sunday morning creating an outfit for Hermione's evening at the opera, and she'd truly outdone herself.

The dress, a mere breath of copper-coloured fairy silk, was completed by a wrap-around top of a woolly material so light and soft that calling it wool was an insult. At first, Hermione had objected, because she'd thought the gold thread would render it scratchy, but then she'd discovered they didn't. The garment kept her warm and cosy, and its colour mix of brown, copper and gold complemented the dress perfectly.

She wasn't quite sure what had been more satisfying: the look on Lucius's face when he'd welcomed her at the Manor or his expression when she took the top off at the opera.

Padma had helped with her hair, and Hermione had to admit that she looked great. A last touch of lipstick, and she returned to their table, where the waiter was just opening a bottle of champagne.

'You are a very beautiful woman, Hermione, but tonight you have surpassed yourself.'

Lucius raised his glass, and she touched hers to it. 'Thank you for a wonderful evening, Lucius.'

'My pleasure entirely.'

They studied their menus and ordered – Hermione silently chastised herself for enjoying that prices just didn't matter – and then sat in silence for a short while.

'I think,' Hermione said, after she'd fuelled her courage with a second glass of champagne, 'that there is something I'd like to discuss with you.'

A shadow crossed his face. 'Does it have to be tonight?'

'You seem to think it's going to be unpleasant,' she teased.

'It did sound rather ominous, yes. Announcements of this kind rarely precede something pleasant. And I've been enjoying myself so much that I really wouldn't want to spoil it.'

Her hand crept across the table to caress his fingers. 'And if I told you that your pleasure isn't likely to be spoiled?'

Lucius sighed. 'Very well. I'm prepared to take the risk.'

'Good.' She leaned back to allow the waiter to serve their starters. 'This is going to be a game of questions and answers. I'll ask the questions, and you'll answer them.' Hermione smiled as his hand twitched under hers. 'I want to hear the truth, though. If you lie to me, this is our last evening together. Have I made myself clear?'

They both picked up their cutlery, and Lucius mustered her intently. 'How very intriguing – how do you intend to verify the truthfulness of my answers?'

'I thought you might find it intriguing. But I'm not going to tell you.'

'Do I at least have the right not to answer your questions?'

'You may skip one.'

His fork slipped from his fingers and clattered against the plate. 'One? That's hardly fair! How many questions will you be asking?'

She was pretty sure there wouldn't be more than four, but she wasn't going to tell him that. 'I haven't yet determined how many. I agree, it's probably not fair, but one is what I'm offering.'

'You drive a hard bargain,' he murmured. 'I suppose that, unless I accept, the consequences will be the same as for lying?' Hermione merely shrugged and tried to look enigmatic. 'Very well. I accept.'

'I'm flattered. I would have conceded two, if you'd insisted, but since you gave up so easily…'

The idea that he might want to deny her an answer hadn't even occurred to her; somehow she'd simply taken for granted that he'd prefer a lie or half-truth. With his unexpected move, though, and the necessity of reacting to it, Hermione was getting into the spirit of things. Now it _was_ a game, and one she was starting to enjoy.

She smiled sweetly when he almost dropped his knife. 'Shall we begin?'

It was evident from Lucius's expression that he would have liked to say a good deal more, but all that came out was a clipped, 'Yes.'

'Why did you sleep with Narcissa?'

She knew the answer already, after Draco had Floo'ed his mother in the morning and reported back to her that it had, indeed, been a lovers' tiff: Sergey had wanted Narcissa to live in Russia with him, after the wedding, and she'd refused. On Lucius's part, it had been wounded pride, as his former teacher, Professor Sinistra, had ended their affair. Both had been shocked when Narcissa turned out to be pregnant, though not as shocked as their parents. The wedding had been arranged quickly – a lavish show of wealth and prestige to cover up the scandal. Narcissa had never confessed to her husband how much she'd been in love with her fiancé, or at least not until the moment she'd received a letter from the recently widowed Sergey.

Lucius shook his head. 'I'm sorry, but that's none of your business. It concerns exclusively Narcissa and myself, and I couldn't answer your question without consulting her beforehand.'

Spearing a piece of artichoke, Hermione raised her eyebrows. 'Isn't it a bit early in the game to squander your one and only get-out-of-jail card?'

'It may surprise you, but I do have my principles.'

'I wouldn't call it a surprise, but it's certainly a pleasant reminder.' She slipped out of her sandal and caressed his ankle with her toes. 'On to question number two, then: Why and how did you choose me?'

Squaring his shoulders, Lucius put down his knife and fork and removed the napkin from his lap. 'Your lack of insistence, when I refused to answer the first question, suggests that you knew the answer already, although Merlin only knows how you found out. If the same is true for this question…' He paused to look down, but then raised his head to fully meet her eyes with his. 'I refuse to be treated in this way, Hermione. If you derive amusement from my humiliation, attempting to court you was a mistake and I'll be glad to take my leave.'

She caught his hand just before he got up. 'Why is it so humiliating to admit that you wanted to find the right woman? Arithmancy may be somewhat lacking in romantic allure, but if I had tried and failed twice, I suppose I, too, would prefer the scientific approach.'

Had she morphed into Voldemort, he couldn't have looked more stricken. 'How…' He cleared his throat. 'You really did know? But how?'

'I'm afraid that I'm the one who asks the questions tonight. Remember the rules?'

'I also remember you promising that you weren't going to spoil the evening.'

'Well, the evening isn't over yet. Question number three: How would you describe your feelings for me?'

To her relief, he relaxed fractionally. 'Well, I can answer this one. When my, er, equations had yielded the same result for five times in a row, I must admit that my interest was sparked. I know, of course, that Arithmancy merely shows the most likely among a wide range of possibilities, but given our, well, history, I would never even have considered…'

'Were you shocked?'

'Yes. That's why I tried five different approaches, to make sure.'

'I can imagine,' she said dryly. 'By the way, I did my own bit of Arithmancy today, after lunch.'

'What was the – oh, I forgot. You are asking the questions.'

Hermione smiled and inclined her head. 'And afterwards? When the first shock had passed?'

'I Apparated to the Daily Prophet and turned their archives upside down.'

'You read up on me. Exactly what I would have done under the circumstances. It seems that we have more in common than we both thought. And then?'

'Then I went back home and debated with myself whether to get smashed right away or do a bit of planning before drinking myself into a coma.'

She laughed. 'How flattering.'

'You are misunderstanding me deliberately.'

'No.' Her hand found his fingers and squeezed. 'No, I don't misunderstand you. Considering our, as you said, shared history, the idea does seem rather bizarre. Not revolting, or anything like that. Just, well, outlandish.'

Deciding to give him a bit of time to recover, Hermione finished her starter. So far things had gone surprisingly well.

When their plates were changed, she'd made up her mind: if he gave the right answer to her most important question, she was going to take the plunge.

'You still haven't answered my question, Lucius. The one about your feelings for me.'

'You're worse than a terrier pursuing a rat,' he said and chuckled.

'I certainly hope so.'

'It's not… an easy question to answer.'

'All I want is the truth.'

He looked up, and their eyes met. 'You intrigue me. You are a beautiful, intelligent and independent woman. A passionate lover. A powerful witch. I've come to genuinely like you. No more and no less.'

'And you mean to marry me.'

'Not now.' He gave her a quick smile. 'But later on, yes.'

'What would you be prepared to do for me?'

In a mere fraction of a second, his expression went from light-hearted to closed-off. 'That is dangerous territory, Hermione.' The fingertips of his right hand ghosted over his left sleeve, brushing the spot where his Dark Mark had been.

'True. I'm sorry.' Her toes resumed their exploration of his leg. 'Let me reformulate: if I promised to consider your offer, would you promise me in turn to abandon your plans of finding the culprit?'

'Oh, that. Yes, of course I would.'

'Because you already know who it is.'

He shrugged. 'If you say so.'

'You're very lucky that this wasn't a question, Lucius.'

'I know.' He grinned at her.

'So that promise isn't worth a great deal, is it?'

'Not really, no.' He'd finished de-boning his fish and proceeded to sprinkle lemon juice on it. 'Just to interrupt the routine of our game, may I say that I want to take you home and fuck you unconscious?'

Hermione stared at his hand, mesmerized, as it squeezed the wedge of lemon. 'Duly noted, Mr Malfoy. But I still want you to answer my previous question. So tell me, if I promised to consider your offer, would you do me a favour? I'm going to disclose a secret to you, and it's something I know will upset you. To, erm, use a euphemism. Instead of losing your temper, will you promise to hear me out quietly and act like a grown-up?'

'You're being vague again. And terribly ominous, I might add.'

'Yes, I'm aware of that. But don't you think it's time to show me some trust?'

'And now you're being very, very sneaky.' He chuckled. 'I appreciate that in a woman.'

She held out her hand to him. 'Do we have a deal?'

For a moment she thought she'd gambled too high and lost it all. But then he took her fingers in a firm grip. 'We have a deal, Miss Granger.'

ooOoo

Many, though certainly not all, of those who knew Lucius Malfoy might have been astonished to learn that he was, indeed, a man of his word.

He had listened quietly to what Hermione had told him. Brow darkening but outwardly calm, he'd finished his main course. The waiter's offer of dessert had met with stony-faced refusal. He had written out a payment order and left a tip of two galleons without a word. Lips compressed into a thin line but composed, he had risen from his chair and taken Hermione's hand to help her up. He had slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and guided her out of the restaurant without speaking. Once outside, he'd Apparated them straight to his bedroom. Once there, he had, indeed, fucked her unconscious.

The two times they'd made love before hadn't exactly been vanilla sex, but Hermione had sensed a certain restraint or hesitation about him; an almost imperceptible loosening of his grip, the slightest softening of his lips when he kissed her, had spoken of something ferocious that was being reined in at the last moment.

Tonight, there had been none of that.

Never before had she realized the meaning of "rough" as clearly and, she had to acknowledge, pleasantly as when he'd pounced on her after their wordless return from La Grenouille. It had surprised and overwhelmed her, but not for a single moment had she been afraid. Somewhere at the back of her mind there was the safe knowledge that he'd stop immediately if she told him to. But the experience was far too fascinating even to consider calling a halt to it. Strange though it still felt to her, she did trust him not to hurt her.

That, however, didn't mean that she didn't lose consciousness, if only briefly, after he'd driven her to a third, almost painful orgasm.

When she came to, feeling sore and exhausted, she sensed his hand resting lightly on her belly. Her lips were tender and a little bruised, but she felt them curl into a smile nonetheless.

'We'll have to work on your stamina, my dear,' he murmured in honeyed tones, which didn't quite conceal the underlying worry. 'All this fainting is a little irritating, despite the undeniable dramatic flair.'

Eyelids drooping, because she simply didn't have the strength to keep them open, she let her limp hand wander to his (equally limp) cock and squeezed. 'Stop acting all superior, Malfoy. I can feel your hand tremble.'

The hand, which was indeed shaking slightly, moved to curl around her hip. 'I didn't hurt you, did I?'

'No.' Hermione opened her eyes and met his, stormy and a little troubled. 'No, you didn't, and I'm sure you didn't want to.' Her muscles were protesting the movement, but she scooted closer to him. 'Lucius, if this is the effect bad news has on you, I must try it again.'

'Does that mean…' His glance swerved towards her upper arm, and she winced when his finger brushed a very delicate spot. She raised the arm to have a look – this wasn't a mere bruise but a bite mark. 'Does that mean you liked it?' he finished the question.

'It's not something I'd do every day – too exhausting by half – and maybe you could refrain next time from trying to gnaw off my arm, but the excitement factor is rather high.' She cupped his cheek. 'How are you feeling?'

Lucius gave her a lopsided grin. 'Wrung out, to own the truth. But not in a bad way. Would you maybe like some coffee?'

'I doubt I'll be able to raise the cup to my lips, but coffee would be wonderful. And maybe some sweets? Our hasty departure deprived me of dessert.'

'And a brandy,' he added gravely. 'There's nothing like coffee and brandy to initiate a civilized conversation.'

'So long as you don't expect me to smoke a cigar and discuss the latest Quidditch match...'

He'd given her a pyjama top and put on the matching bottoms, and they were lounging in bed, sipping coffee.

'So my son is gay,' he stated. Apart from a slight note of resignation, no emotion was detectable in his voice. 'Do you have any idea whom he might be seeing?'

'Lucius, you aren't going to break- '

He leaned over to kiss her cheek. 'No, I'll keep my promise. I only hope' – he sighed deeply – 'that it's someone… worthy.'

'He certainly deserves to be with a nice bloke who loves him.' Hermione selected a petit four and peeled back the white paper ruffle. The sweet was almost in her mouth, when she suddenly put it down, because inspiration had struck.

Although the news had hit him hard, Lucius had taken them unexpectedly well. For him, such behaviour qualified as saintly (apart from the wild shagging, of course, which didn't quite fit into that category).

Such exemplary behaviour did warrant a little compensation, didn't it?

ooOoo

Her dislike of lies and subterfuge had surely been one of the determining factors in the Sorting Hat's decision. It had hesitated only briefly before proclaiming that Hermione Granger belonged into the House of Gryffindor. This particular character trait, or so she supposed, was one of those which made a distinction between nature and nurture quite impossible.

While still a small child, she hadn't been able to see the attraction or necessity of telling the untruth, whether white lie or black.

She did, of course, remember the later years, when inexplicable things had started to happen. She could still hear, in her mind, her parents exhorting her to be truthful – bad memories, those, from when she was aged about eight or nine, and her magic had begun to show.

It seemed paradoxical, but she'd almost discovered the simple beauty of a well-thought-out lie back then: it would have been so much easier to confess that she'd thrown a stone through the window, than that it had _just exploded_; one minute it had been there and whole, if slightly grubby, and the next she'd felt something, strange and wonderful and a bit frightening, just _erupt_ from within her, and then there'd been only shards.

Her parents had wanted a truth that would have made them feel better, but much as she loved them, she hadn't been able to give it to them. She hadn't been able to say, Yes, I'm sorry, mum, dad, I threw a stone. It wasn't the truth, so why say it?

Later on, when she'd grown up and the world had shrunk to its true, adult dimensions, Hermione had understood the necessity of compromise which was, in and of itself, a lie. She'd begun to appreciate that a very slight correction of the truth could be the miraculous oil that made the cogwheels of life turn more smoothly.

The lie for its own sake, though_, l'art pour l'art_, the false reality one fabricated merely because one could, was completely new territory to her.

Somehow she didn't believe it was a coincidence that she'd dabbled in the fine art of wilful deceit for the first time when she'd tried, and successfully so, to worm the truth out of one Lucius Malfoy during their dinner at La Grenouille. It had been a reversal of roles, and one she'd thoroughly relished.

Apart from pretending that she didn't already know the answers to all the questions she'd asked him – except for the most important one about his feelings for her, which was pretty ironic, too – she'd also told him an outright fib: she hadn't run any Arithmantic equations before going to the Manor. True, she'd flirted with the idea, had even sat down twice with quill and parchment, but courage had deserted her.

That had been two days ago. Much had happened since she'd dismissed the equations and instead made herself pretty for an evening at the opera. Lucius had revealed a lot of himself that night to her– not that she was entertaining any illusions, he certainly hadn't revealed more than he absolutely had to. But still, he had sacrificed (how perversely oxymoronic that word was in connection with Lucius!) his one opportunity of denying her an answer, because he respected his ex-wife's privacy. He'd responded clearly and unambiguously to her question concerning his feelings for her. And he'd kept his promise, when she'd confronted him with the truth about Draco.

Lucius's behaviour that evening had been a powerful catalyst; her own emotions had undergone a most dramatic change. And now, at home on a drizzly, chilly Tuesday evening, she felt that she had to know.

No more what-if's, Hermione said to herself. If the result of the equation she was about to start indicated Lucius as her ideal match, or even only him among others, there wouldn't be much need for self-examination.

If, on the other hand, the outcome excluded him, then she'd do well to put the relationship on hold, stay at a distance and have a very close look at her feelings. She was only human and not immune to charms, money and earth-shattering sex.

If it wasn't him, she really was going to miss the sex…

ooOoo

The flames in the fireplace flared green.

'Hermione?'

She'd been waiting for the call, nervously pacing her small flat and unable to do anything but play and replay scenarios in her mind of Ginny telling Harry about Malfoy, of a final and irremediable breach between the couple, of her and Ginny's friendship being severed because Hermione had bullied her friend into telling Harry the truth.

Ginny's voice sounded tremulous and a bit thick, and Hermione felt her heart sink.

'Ginny?' She fell to her knees in front of the fireplace, hitting the floor hard. Never mind the bruises, though, they could be easily healed. 'Ginny, is everything all right?'

Oh, the relief, the unspeakable relief, when Ginny smiled and nodded.

'It's fine. It wasn't easy, but… I think I'd like for Harry to have a second target now. Why don't you come through and tell him about your, erm, plans?'

'Are you sure he's going to survive it?'

'Pretty sure, yes. What could be worse than his own wife entrusting her mental health to Lucius?'

'There's that, yes. But I think his best friend having a relationship with Lucius comes a close second.'

Ginny blew her nose and smirked at her. 'Let's put him to the test, then.'

She really was one of the most resilient creatures Hermione knew, this Ginny Potter.

ooOoo

Harry waved a weak hand. 'I think I need a drink now.'

'Make that two,' Hermione said. 'Confessing is almost as taxing as granting absolution, you know.'

'I haven't done that yet.'

'But you will, won't you?'

He got up with a sigh and walked, slightly unsteady, towards the kitchen. His expression was troubled, but he ruffled Hermione's hair when he went past her.

'You hadn't told me about the equation!' Ginny said, every word dripping with reproach.

'That was my little surprise for tonight. A bonus, let us say, for your bravery in the face of… er…'

'…the enemy,' Ginny finished the sentence, and both women laughed. 'Well, believe me, that was exactly how I felt. I don't know how I found the courage.'

'We'll have to put it down to love then, I suppose.'

'How disgustingly romantic.'

'Yes, isn't it. Oh, thanks, Harry.' She eyed her glass. 'If the quantity of whisky is in any way related to the general distress coefficient…'

'It is,' he replied sombrely. 'But I'm trying to look at the bright side: I'd believe, if reluctantly, that one of you might have gone mad. But not both of you. And since Malfoy seems to have treated both of you well-'

'Oh, he's been treating Hermione _exceedingly_ well,' Ginny said, leering.

'I don't think I want to deal with that particular aspect right now,' Harry said, giving her a plaintive look. 'Have some mercy, please. Let me get used to it step by step.' The rather large gulp of whisky he took clearly indicated that he was trying to flush certain images from his mind. The coughing fit this provoked clearly indicated that he wasn't usually a whisky-gulper.

The ladies tactfully refrained from snickering.

'Are you sure you got your equation right?' Harry asked when he could breathe again.

Hermione glared. 'I'll just pretend I didn't hear this one.'

'Sorry. And, erm, waiting for Mohammad Abdullah Ben Ahmed Ibn Saoud to grow up wouldn't be an option, I suppose?'

'I'm thirty, Harry darling, or as good as, and he's just turned two.'

'So mentioning that Malfoy was twenty-seven when you turned two probably wouldn't be a good idea, either, huh?'

'Not really, no.' Suddenly serious, she leaned over and put her hand on his forearm. 'You're taking this far, far better than I would ever have dared to hope, Harry. Thanks.'

'Well, I am a rather nice bloke, you know?'

'Not to forget The Boy Who Lived,' Ginny put in.

'Order of Merlin, First Class,' Hermione supplied.

He relaxed visibly and smiled at them in turn. 'You forgot the highest honours, though: Husband of Ginny and Best Friend of Hermione.'

'I think,' Ginny said after she'd kissed him thoroughly, 'you ought to write that line down somewhere for your next interview. It's better than anything even Lockhart could've come up with.'

'I'm so glad I married a woman who always puts me in my place. Anyway, Hermione, tell us about the grand scheme for your birthday party.'

'Oh, that.' She tried to look modest. 'Well, first of all Lucius has been so very sensible about Draco. Considering how well he reacted to news I know must have been shattering, I really think he ought to be rewarded.'

'Isn't that what you've been doing every night since Sunday? I'm rather astonished that a man of his age survived all this rewarding.'

Harry groaned and put a hand over his eyes.

'Really, Ginny,' Hermione said, once she'd recovered from her own coughing fit. 'Have some consideration for your poor husband. And then, I thought that Draco is enjoying his plotting and planning way too much. I'm very fond of him, but he really shouldn't be allowed to think that he's so much cleverer than the rest of us. Let us show him that Gryffindors, too, can be quite cunning.'

ooOoo

Hermione's living room wasn't big enough for a table that could sit ten, but she'd simply shrunk the rest of her furniture – under Crookshanks' disapproving stare, because he, like all his fellow felines, hated changes in his routine or his flat – and transfigured her small rectangular table into a bigger, round one. Since this was her birthday party and hence a special occasion, she'd even put a very ingenious little charm on the chairs, so that they would assume the ideal height and form for those who occupied them.

The table was laden with fondue pots, plates of raw meat and vegetables, side dishes, salads and some very tasty sauces. Fondue had been her traditional birthday fare since she was old enough to do it properly, and she certainly wasn't going to change that on her thirtieth birthday. Besides, it was a lot more conducive to socializing and chatting than any other kind of meal.

Her guests arrived, alone or in couples, and Hermione made the necessary introductions. Her parents only knew Harry and Ginny, and it was high time they met Padma, Draco and Penny.

The champagne was opened, the heap of presents duly admired, and everybody toasted the birthday girl. Even Crookshanks, who had been in a foul mood all day long, deigned to make an appearance. Hermione was convinced he only did it to spite her, because he made a big show of head-butting and purring at her parents, who had cared for him while in Australia, but completely ignored his witch.

Then they all sat down to dinner.

'Are you expecting somebody else?' Mr Granger asked, pointing at two conspicuously empty chairs.

'Oh, yes.' Hermione speared a piece of beef fillet and added half a mushroom. 'Two surprise guests.'

Draco, who was sitting at her left, snorted. 'Meaning you don't know who they are?'

'Oh, I do know who they are.' She lowered her fork into the oil. 'But nobody else does.'

Mrs Granger, who had been eyeing Draco rather hopefully, frowned. 'But it's your birthday, darling. You ought to be surprised, not your guests.'

'My point exactly,' Draco said, giving her a sunny smile and elbowing Hermione. 'We don't like surprises.'

'Speak for yourself, ferret-boy,' Harry said. 'I do like surprises.'

He and Hermione exchanged a covert glance. Since he was in on the secret, it would hardly be a surprise for him.

She fondly watched her friend of old as he leaned over to kiss his wife. Ginny had been so worried about telling him, but she'd been right to bully her into it. A couple like Harry and Ginny, who had come such a long way, shouldn't have any secrets. Hermione beamed at the two of them and got two sly winks in return.

After this interlude, the conversation picked up and became lively: Penny and Mr Granger discovered a mutual interest in bird-watching, Hermione's mother let off a firework of charm at Draco, whom she obviously assumed to be Hermione's boyfriend, and Padma was deep in conversation with Harry and Ginny.

As no-one except Harry, Ginny and Hermione had anticipated, the doorbell rang at exactly twenty minutes to eight. Ginny, who had taken the chair nearest to the door, stood up.

Hermione, who had pretended to be getting up from her seat, sat down again.

'Are these the surprise guests?' Ginny asked.

'No.' Hermione frowned. 'They're supposed to arrive at half-eight. I wonder…'

'Well, I'll just have a look,' Ginny said brightly.

After peering through the spy hole, she returned to the table, eyes large with perfectly feigned wonderment. 'It's Lucius,' she whispered. 'Hermione, Draco, this is the perfect opportunity – start snogging! Now!'

Five pairs of eyes swivelled towards her. 'The perfect opportunity for what?' Padma hissed.

'Shh! Quiet! I'll explain later!' She frantically gestured for Draco and Hermione to get on with their show.

The doorbell rang again.

'All right, Granger,' Draco muttered, 'It's a sacrifice, but I'm doing it for you.' He gathered her in his arms and started kissing her.

Mr and Mrs Granger stared.

Harry cleared his throat and topped up his glass of Shiraz with a generous splash of Chablis.

Penny and Padma giggled.

Ginny opened the door. 'Mr Malfoy,' she trilled, 'what an unexpected pleasure! Hermione told us there would be surprise guests, but – Neville! Oh, it's lovely to see you! Come in and join us!'

Draco bit down on Hermione's lip and was rewarded by a sound kick in the shin. 'Sorry,' he whispered, 'but Neville's my boyfriend…'

'Keep going!' Hermione whispered back and drew him closer.

The door fell shut, and there was a brief silence, enhanced by the soft burbling of the hot oil in the fondue pots. Then, the sound of measured footsteps. Then, again, silence.

'What,' Lucius enunciated in clipped tones, 'is the meaning of this?'

Nobody said a word, while Draco and Hermione's lips separated with an audible smacking sound.

Draco cleared his throat. 'Father, I can explain…' He fell silent and looked up at his father, who was looming over him. 'Erm, if I absolutely have to.'

He wasn't the only one who winced when Lucius's hand came to rest heavily on his son's shoulder. 'Speak now, or forever hold your silence.'

'That _was_ Shakespearian,' Hermione muttered to Draco, who merely glared. 'Oh, all right, it wasn't. Go on, Draco, tell your father!'

'I, uh, well, that is, Hermione and I…' He stopped and cast a look of desperation at Hermione.

She felt the laughter rise inside her like champagne from a just-opened bottle, but managed to keep it down. Draco's expression was well worth the effort. 'Well, Lucius, the truth is that Draco…'

'…is as gay as a maypole.'

'Well said, Lucius.'

'Thank you. And Mr Longbottom here' – he pulled a rather reluctant Neville forward, so that they were standing side by side – 'is the man on whom Draco's happiness depends, the lodestar of his life.'

'So it seems,' Hermione confirmed gravely.

'Why, then, Draco, did I have to witness you kissing Hermione Granger?'

'Well, it was… you see…'

'I can think of more believable rivals, Draco.'

'Yes, father.'

'Women don't usually kick their boyfriends in the shin while kissing them, Draco.'

'I, erm, bit her, father.'

'So did I, but I don't remember her kicking me in the shin.'

'That,' Hermione said, 'would have been a bit difficult, seeing as my ankles were on your shoulders at the time. Don't look at me like that, mum. You're always going on about how I need a boyfriend.'

Draco, on whose face admiration had been warring with the humiliation of being neatly outmanoeuvred by a Gryffindor, and a quintessential one at that, tsk-ed at Hermione. 'I bet she didn't say biting was compulsory, Granger. Mrs Granger, may I introduce my father, Mr Lucius Malfoy. Mr Granger, Mr Malfoy. Mrs Granger, my boyfriend Neville Longbottom. Mr Granger, Mr Longbottom.'

With a wry glance at his son, Lucius shook the petrified Grangers' hands. Neville merely sketched a bow and waved at his former schoolmates.

Since neither of Hermione's parents had yet recovered sufficiently to talk, Lucius rounded the table to kiss first Padma's and then Penny's hand. Both women mouthed "Wow!" at Hermione, when he turned to kiss Ginny on both cheeks.

Then it was Harry's turn, and Hermione held her breath, grasping for Draco's hand.

'Mr Potter. We meet at last.'

'Mr Malfoy. I… want to thank you for what you did for my wife.'

'It was the least I could do, given my part in her, er, troubles.'

Lucius looked back over his shoulder when Hermione exhaled audibly, and smirked at her. Passing the still-catatonic Grangers, he returned to her side.

'I believe you wanted to vacate this seat, Draco,' he said, hoisting his son out of his chair and propelling him in the general direction of Neville Longbottom. 'And now, to an entirely unrehearsed part of Hermione's birthday party.'

He kneeled down and took Hermione's hand. 'Miss Granger, will you do me the honour of accepting this engagement ring?'

Hermione smiled down at him. 'No strings attached? Just so we can get to know each other better?'

'No strings attached.' He'd said it through clenched teeth, but then, Hermione thought, it was the intention that counted.

'In that case, yes, Mr Malfoy, I'd feel honoured.' She held out her hand, and Lucius slipped the ring on her finger.

'What do you mean-'

Mr Granger clapped a hand over his wife's mouth. 'Shh, dearest. Just keep remembering that this is the farthest she's ever got with any bloke.'

'Well,' Hermione said, 'that was a surprise, wasn't it? And now, I think, we could all use some dinner. Romance always makes me – Crookshanks!'

With a regretful glance at the last piece of beef fillet, Crookshanks ponderously hopped off the table, onto a chair and from there to the floor.

He'd seen worse birthdays.

-- THE -- END –

P.S.: Yes, Sol did approve of Lucius. This may be due to the fact that Sol was none other than Severus Snape, rescued from certain death by his blond friend.

But that is a different story, to be told at another time.


End file.
